JIMMIE HIGGINS
1BY UPTON SINCLAIR
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JIMMIE HIGGINS
A Story
BY
UPTON SINCLAIR
attthor op "the junqiib,'' "the joubnal op abthtib btebuno," '
"king coal," "the propitb op BBUGION,"
ETC.
1919 ,
UPTON SINCLAIR
Copyright, 1918, 1919,
By UPTON SINCLAIR
Copyright in Great Britain and dependenqies,
and vn Europe^ including the Scandinavian countries.
All rights reserved.
Printed by
Western Printing & Lithographing Company
Racine, Wisconsin
Printed in U. S. A.
^3
y I -Dmipzecl by MTcrosoft®
CONTENTS
CHAPTEE ' PAGE
I JiMMiE HiGGiNs Meets the Candidate .... 1
II Jimmie Hiqgins Hears a Speech 15
III Jimmie Higgins Debates the Issite 24
IV Jimmie Higgins Stbikes It Rich 35
V Jimmie Higgins Helps the Kaiser 45
VI Jimmie Higgins Goes to Jail 56
VII Jimmie Higgins Dallies with Cupid 69
VIII Jimmie Higgins Puts His Foot in It 81
IX Jimmie Higgins Returns to Nature 91
X Jimmie Higgins Meets the Owner 98
XI Jimmie Higgins Faces the War . . . . ■". . 107
XII Jimmie Higgins Meets a Patriot 115
XIII Jimmie Higgins Dodges Trouble 125
XIV Jimmie Higgins Takes the Road 137
XV Jimmie Higgins Turns Bolshevik 151
XVI Jimmie Higgins Meets the Tempter 159
XVII Jimmie Higgins Wrestles with the Tempter . . 169
XVIII Jimmie Higgins Takes the Plunge 176
XIX Jimmie Higgins Puts on Khaki 184
XX Jimmie Higgins Takes a Swim 193
XXI Jimmie Higgins Enters Societt 203
XXII Jimmie Higgins Works for His Uncle 211
XXIII Jimmie Higgins Meets the Hun 220
XXrV Jimmie Higgins Sees the Other Side 235
XXV Jimmie Higgins Enters into Danger 244
XXVI Jimmie Higgins Discovers His Soul 258
XXVH Jimmie Higgins Votes for Democracy 273
V
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JIMMIE HIGGINS
CHAPTEE I
JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE
IIMMIE," said Lizzie, "couldn't we go see the pictures?"
' And Jimmie set down the saucer of hot coffee which he
ras in the act of adjusting to his mouth, and stared at his
dfe. He did not say anything; in three years and a half as
married man he had learned that one does not always say
verything that comes into one's mind. But he meditated on
he abysses that lie between the masculine and feminine intel-
3cts. That it should be possible for any one to wish to see a
aovie idol leaping into second-story windows, or being pulled
rom beneath flying express-trains, on this day of destiny, this
reatest crisis in history!
"You know, Lizzie," he said, patiently, "I've got to help at
lie Opera-house."
"But you've got all morning !"
"1 know;. but if 11 take all day."
And Lizzie fell silent; for she too had learned much in three
ears and a half of married life. She had ledrned that work-
agmen's wives seldom get all they would like in this world;
Iso that to have a propagandist for a husband is not the worst
ite that may befall. After all, he might have been giving his
ime and money to drink, or to other women ; he might have
een dying of a cough, like the man next door. If one could
ot have a bit of pleasure on a Sunday afternoon — ^well, one
light sigh, but not too loud.
1
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2 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Jimmie began telling all the things that had to be done that
Sunday morning and afternoon. They seemed to Lizzie exactly
like' the things that were done on other occasions before meet-
ings. To be sure, this was bigger — ^it was in the Opera-house,
and all the stores had cards in the windows, with a picture of
the Candidate who was to be the orator of the occasion. But
it was hard for Lizzie to understand the difference between this
Candidate and other candidates^-none of whom ever got elected !
Lizzie would truly rather have stayed at home, for she did not
understand English very well when it was shouted from a plat-
form, and with a lot of long words ; but she knew that Jimmie
was trying to educate her, and being a woman, she was educated
to this extent — she knew the way to hold onto her man.
Jimmie had just discovered a new solution of the problem
of getting the babies to meetings ; and Lizzie knew that he was
tremendously proud of this discovery. So long as there had
been only one baby, Jimmie had carried it. When there had
come a second, Lizzie had helped. But now there were three,
the total weight of them something over sixty pounds; and the
street-car line was some distance away, and also it hurt Jimmie
in his class-cOnsciousness to pay twenty cents to a predatory
corporation. They had tried the plan &f paying something to
a neighbour to stay with the babies ; but the first they tried was
a young girl who got tired and went away, leaving the little
ones to howl their heads off; and the second was a Polish lady
whom they found in a drunken stupor on their return.
But. Jimmie was determined to go to meetings, and deter-
mined that Lizzie should go along. It was one of the curses
of the system, he said, that it deprived working-class women of
all chance for self-improvement. So he had paid a visit to the
"Industrial Store," a junk-shop maintained by the Salvation
Army, and for fifteen cents he had obtained a marvellous broad
baby-carriage for twins, all finished in shiny black enameL
One side of it was busted, but Jimmie had fixed that with some
wire, and by careful packing had shown that it was possible
to stow the youngsters in it — Jimmie Junior and Pete side by
side, and the new baby at the foot.
The one trouble was that Jimmie Junior couldn't keep his
feet still. He could never keep any part of him still, the little
jack-in-the-box. Here he was now, tearing about the kitchen,
pursuing the ever-receding tail of the newest addition to the
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE 3
family, a half-starved cur who had followed Jimmie in from
the street, and had been fed into a semblance of reality. From
this treasure a bare, round tail hung out behind in tantalising
fashion ; Jimmie Junior, always imagining he could catch it, was
toddling round and round and round the kitchen-table, clutch-
ing out in front of him, laughing so that after a while he sat
down from sheer exhaustion.
And Jimmie Senior watched enraptured. Say, but he was a
buster! Did you ever see a twenty-seven months old kid that
could get over the ground like that ? Or make a louder noise ?
This last because Jimmie Junior had tried to take a short cut
through the kitchen range and failed. Lizzie swooped down,
clasping him to her broad bosom, and pouring out words of
comfort in Bohemian. As Jimmie Senior did not understand
any of these words, he took advantage of the confusion to get
his coat and cap and hustle off to the Opera-house, full of fresh
determination. For, you see, whenever a Socialist looks at his
son, or even thinks of his son. he is hotter for his job of propa-
gandist. Let the world be changed soon, so that the little fel-
lows may be spared those sufferings and humiliations which have
fallen to the lot of their parents !
ir
"Comrade Higgins, have you got a hammer?" It was
Comrade Schneider who spoke, and he did not take the trouble
to come down from the ladder, where he was holding up a
streamer of bunting, but .waited comfortably for the hammer to
be fetched to him. And scarcely had the fetcher started to
climb before there came the voice of a woman from across the
stage: "Comrade Higgins, has the Ypsel banner come?" And
from the rear part of the hall came the rotund voice of fat
Comrade Eapinsky : "Comrade Higgins, will .you bring up an
extra table for the literature ?" . And from the second tier box
Comrade Mary Allen spoke : "While you're downstairs. Comrade
Higgins, would you mind telephoning and making sure the
Eeeeption Committee knows about the change in the train-
time?"
So it went ; and Jimmie ran about the big hall with his face
red and perspiring; for this was mid-summer, and no breeze
came through the windows of the LeesviUe Opera-house, and
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4: JIMMIE HIGGINS
when you got high up on the walls to tie the streamers of red
bunting, you felt as if you were being baked. But the streamers
had to be tied, and likewise the big red flag over the stage, and
the banner of the Karl Marx Verein, and the banner of the
Ypsels, or Young People's Socialist League of Leesville, and
the banner of the Machinists' Union, Local 4717, ^nd of the
Carpenters' Union, District 539, and of the Workers' Co-opera-
tive Society. And because Comrade Higgins never questioned
anybody's right to give him orders, and always did everything
with a cheerful grin, people had got into the habit of regarding
him as the proper person for tedious and disagreeable tasks.
He had all the more on his hands at present, because the
members of this usually efficient local were half-distracted, like
a nest of ants that have been dug out with a shovel. The most
faithful ones showed a tendency to forget what they were doing,
and to gather in knots to talk about the news which had come
over the cables and had been published in that morning's paper.
Jimmie Higgins would have liked to hear what the rest had
to say; but somebody had to keep at work, for the local was
in the hole nearly three hundred dollars for to-night's affair, and
it must succeed, even though half the civilised world had gone
suddenly insane. So Jimmie continued to climb step-ladders
and tie bunting.
When it came to lunch-time, and the members of the Decora-
tions Committee were going out, it suddenly occurred to one of
them that the drayman who was to bring the literature might
arrive while there was nobody to receive it; So Comrade Hig-
gins was allowed to wait during the lunch hour. There was a
plausible excuse — he was on the Literature Committee; indeed,
he was on every committee where hard work was involved — ^the
committee to distribute leaflets announcing the meeting, the com-
mittee to interview the labour imions and urge them to sell
tickets, the committee to take up a collection at the meeting.
He was not on those committees which involved honour and
edification, such as, for example, the committee to meet the
Candidate at the depot and escort him to the Opera-house. But
then it would never have occurred to Jimmie that he had any
place' on such a committee; for he was just an ignorant fellow,
a machinist, undersized and undernourished, with bad teeth and
roughened hands, and no gifts or graces of any sort to recom-
mend him; while on the Eeeeption Committee were a lawyer
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE 5
and a prosperous doctor and the secretary of the Carpet-weavers'
Union, all people who wore good clothes and had education, and
knew how to talk to a Candidate.
So Jimmie waited ; and when the drayman came, he opened
up the packages of books and pamphlets and laid them out in
neat piles on the literature tables, and hung several of the more
attractive ones on the walls behind the tables; so, of course,
Comrade Mabel Smith, who was chairman of the Literature
Committee, was greatly pleased when she came back from lunch.
And then came the members of the German Liederkranz, to re-
hearse the programme they were to give ; and Comrade Higgins
would have liked first rate to sit and listen, but somebody dis-
covered the need of glue, and he chased out to find a drug-store
that was open on Sunday.
Later on there was a lull, and Jimmie realised that he was
hungry. He examined the contents of his pockets and found
that he had seventeen cents. It was a long way to his home, so
he would step around the corner and have a cup of coffee and
a couple of "sinkers" at "Tom's." He first conscientiously
asked if anybody needed anything, and Comrade Mabel Smith
told him to hurry back to help her put out the leaflets on the
seats, and Comrade Meissner would need help in arranging the
chairs on the stage.
in
When you went from the Leesville Opera-house and turned
West on Main Street, you passed Heinz's Cafe, which was a
"swell" eating-place, and not for Jimmie; and then the "Bijou
Nickelodeon," with a mechanical piano in the entrance ; and the
"Bon Marche Shoe Store," which was always having a fire-sale
or a removal sale or a bankruptcy clearing-out; and then
Lipsky's "Picture Palace," with a brown and yellow cowboy
galloping away » with a red and yellow maiden in his arms ; then
Harrod's "Fancy Grocery" on the corner. And in each of these
places there was a show-card in the window, with a picture of
the Candidate, and the announcement that on Sunday evening,
at eight o'clock, he would speak at the Leesville Opera-house on
"War, the Reason and the Eemedy." Jimmie Higgins looked
at the cards, and a dignified yet joyful pride stirred in his
bosoih; for all of them were there because he, Jimmie, had
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6 JIMMIE HIGGINS
interviewed the proprietors and obtained their more or less re-
luctant consent.
Jimmie knew that on this same Sunday, in cities all over
Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and England, the workers
were gathering by millions and tens of millions, to protest
against the red horror of war being let loose over their heads.
And in America too — a call would go from the new world to
the old, that the workers should rise and carry out their pledge
to prevent this crime against mankind. He, Jimmie Higgins,
had ilo voice that anybody would heed; but he had helped to
bring the people of his city to hear a man who had a voice, and
who would show the meaning of this world-crisis to the working-
people.
It was the party's Candidate for President. At this time
only congressional elections were pending, but this man had been
Candidate for President so often that every one thought of him
in that role. You might say that each of his campaigns lasted
four years ; he travelled from one end of the land to the other,
and counted by the millions those who heard his burning, bit-
ter message. It had chanced that the day which the War-lords
and Money-lords of Europe had chosen to drive their slaves to
slaughter was the day on which the Candidate had been scheduled
to speak in the Leesville Opera-house. No wonder the Socialists
of the little inland city were stirred !
Jimmie Higgins turned into "Tom's Buffeteria," and greeted
the proprietor, and seated himself on a stool in front of the
counter, and called :^r coffee, and helped himself to "sinkers" —
which might have been called "life-preservers," they were blown
so full of air. He filled his mouth, at the same time looking up
to make sure that Tom had not removed the card announcing
the meeting; for Tom was a Catholic, and one of the reasons
that Jimmie went to his place was to involve him and his patrons
in arguments over exploitation, unearned increment and surplus
value.
But before a discussion could be started, it chanced that Jim-
mie glanced about. In the back part of the room were four
little tables, covered with oil-cloth, where "short orders" were
served; and at one of those tables a man was seated. Jimmie
took a glance at him, and started so that he almost spilled his
coffee. Impossible; and yet — surely — ^who could mistake that
face? The face of a mediaeval churchman, lean, ascetic, but
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JIMMIE HI6GINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE 7
■with a modern touch of kindliness, and' a bald dome on top like
a moon rising over the prairie. Jimmie stiarted, then stared at
the picture of the Candidate which crowned the shelf of pies.
He turned to the man again; and the man glanced up, and his
eyes met Jimmie's, with their expression of amazement and awe.
The whole story was there, not to be misread— especially by a
Candidate who travels about the country making speeches, and
if being recognised every hour or so from his pictures which have
preceded him. A smile came to his face, and Jimmie set down
the coffee-cup from one trembling hand and the "sinker" from
the other, and rose from his stool.
IV
Jimmie would not have had the courage to advance, save
for the other man's smile — a smile that was weary, but candid
and welcoming. "Howdy do. Comrade?" said the man. He
held out his hand, and the moment of this clasp was the nearest
to heaven that Jimmie Higgins had ever known.
When he was able to find his voice, it was only to exclaim,
"You wasn't due till five-forty-two !"
As if the Candidate had not known that! He explained
that he had missed his sleep the night before, and had come on
ahead so as to snatch a bit during the day. "I see," said
Jimmie ; and then, "I knowed you by your picture."
"Yes ?" said the other, patiently.
And Jimmie groped round in his addled head for something
really worth while. "You'll want to see the Committee?"
"No," said the other, "I, want to finish this first." And
he took a sip from a glass of milk, and a bite out of a sandwich,
and chewed.
So utterly rattled was Jimmie he sat there like a numb-skull,
unable to fimd a word, while the man finished his repast.
When it was over, Jimmie said again — ^he could do no better —
"You want to see the Committee?"
"No," was the reply, "I want to sit here — ^and, perhaps talk
to you, Comrade — Comrade — ?"
"Higgins," said Jimmie.
|l "Comrade Higgins — that is, if you have time."
"Oh, sure !" exclaimed Jimmie. "I got all the time there is.
But the Committee "
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6 JIMMIB HIGGINS
"Never mind the Committee, Comrade. • Do you know how
many Committees I have met on this trip?"
Jimmie did not know ; nor did he have the courage to ask.
"Probably you never thought how it is to be a Candidate,"
continued the other. "You go from place to place, and make
the same speech every night, and it seems as if you slept in the
same hotel every night, and almost as if you met the same Com-
mittee. But you have to remember that your speech is new toi
each audience, and you have to make it as if you had never made
it before; also you have to remember that the Committee is
made up of devoted comrades who are giving everything for the
cause, so you don't tell them that they are just like every other
committee, or that you are tired to dea:th, or maybe have a
headache-T — "
Jimmie sat, gazing in awe-stricken silence. Not being a|
man of reading, he had never heard of "the head that wears
a crown." This was his first glimpse into' the soul of greatness.]
The Candidate went on: "And then, too. Comrade, there's]
the news from Europe. I want a little time. I can't bringj
myself to face it !" .«
His voice had grown sombre, and to Jimmie, gazing at him,
it seemed that all the sorrows of the world were in his tired
grey eyes. "Perhaps I'd better go," said Jimmie.
"No, no," replied the other, with quick self-recovery. He
looked and saw that Jimmie had forgotten his meal. "Bring
your things over here," he said; and the other fetched his cup
and saucer and plate, and gulped the rest of his "sinkers" under
the Candidate's eyes. ;
"I oughtn't to talk," said- the latter. "You see how hoarse ;
I am. But you talk. Tell me about the local, and how things
are going here."
So Jimmie summoned his courage. It was the one thing he
could really talk about, the thing of which his mind and soul
were full. Leesville was a typical small manufacturing city,,
with a glass bottle works, a brewery, a carpet-factory, and' the
big Empire Machine Shops, at which Jimmie himself spent
sixty-three hours of his life each week. The workers were asleep,
of course; but still, you couldn't complain, the movement was,
growing. The local boasted of a hundred and twenty membersi
though of course only about thirty of them could be counted on
for real work. That was the case everywhere, the Candidate pu^
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE 9
in— it was always a few who made the sacrifice and kept things
alive.
Then Jimmie went on to tell about to-night's meeting, the
preparations they had made, the troubles they had had. The
police had suddenly decided to enforce the law against deliver-
ing circulars from house to house; though they allowed Isaac's
"Emporium" to use this method of announcement. The Lees-
ville "Herald" and "Evening Courier" were enthusiastic for
the poKce action; if you couldn't give out circulars, obviously
you would have to advertise in these papers. The Candidate
smiled — he knew about American police officials, and also about
American journalism.
Jimmie had been laid off for a couple of days at the shop,
and he told how he had put this time to good use, getting an-
nouncements of the meeting into the stores. There was an
old Scotchman in a real estate office just across the way. "Git
oot !" he said. "So I thought I'd better git oot !" said Jimmie.
And then, taking his life into his hands, he had gone into the
First Ifational Bank. There was a gentleman walking across
the floor, and Jimmie went up to him and held out one of the
placards with the picture of the Candidate. "Would you be
so good as to put this in your window?" he inquired; and the
other looked at it coldly. Then he smiled — he was a good sport,
apparently. "I don't think my customers would patronise your
business," he said; but Jimmie went at him to take some tickets
and learn about Socialism — and would you believe it, he had
actually shelled out a dollar ! "I found out afterwards that it
was Ashton Chalmers, the president of the bank !" said Jimmie.
"Fd a' been scared, if I'd a' known."
He had not meant to talk about himself ; he was just trying
to entertain a tired Candidate, to keep him from brooding over
a world going to war. But the Candidate, listening, found
tears trying to steal into his eyes. He watched the figure before
him — a bowed, undernourished little man, with one shoulder
lower than the other, a straggly brown moustache stained with
coffee, and stumpy black teeth, and gnarled hands into which
the dirt and grease were ground so deeply that washing them
would obviously be a waste of time. His clothes were worn and
shapeless, his celluloid collar was cracked and his necktie was
almost a rag. You would never have looked at such a man
twice on the street — and yet the Candidate saw in him one of
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10 JIMMIE HIGGINS
those obscure heroes who are making a movement which is to
transform the world.
"Comrade Higgins," said the Candidate, aiter a bit, "let's
you and me run away."
Jimmie looked startled. "How?"
"I mean from the Committee, . and from the meeting, and
from everything." And then, seeing the dismay in the other's
face : "I mean, let's take a walk in the country."
"Oh !" said Jimmie. -
"I see it through the windows of the railroad-cars, but I
don't set foot on it for months at a time. And I was brought
up in the country. Were you ?"
"I was brought up everywhere," said the little machinist.
They got up, and paid each their ten cents to the proprietor
of the "Buffeteria." Jimmie could not resist the temptation to
introduce his hero, and show a pious Catholic that a Socialist
Candidate had neither hoofs nor horns. The Candidate was
used to being introduced for that purpose, and had certain spon-
taneous and cordial words which he had said not less than ten
thousand times before; with the result that the pious ' Catholic
gave his promise to come to the meeting that night.
They went out; and because some member of the Committee
might be passing on Main Street, Jimmie took his hero by an
alley into a back street; and they walked past the glass-factory,
which to the outsider was a long board fence, and across the
Atlantic Western railroad tracks, and past the carpet-factory, a
huge four-story box made of bricks; after which the rows of
wooden shacks began to thin out, and there were vacant lots
and ash-heaps, and at last the beginning of farms.
The Candidate's legs were long, and Jimmie's, alas, were
short, so he had almost to run. The sun blazed down on them,
and sweat, starting from the Candidate's bald head, stole under
the band of his straw hat and down to his wilting collar ; so he
took off his coat and hung it over his arm, and went on, faster
than ever. Jimmie raced beside him, afraid to speak, for he
divined that the Candidate was brooding over the world-calamity,
the millions of young men marching out to slaughter. On
the placards which Jimmie had been distributing in Leesville,
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JIMMIE HIG6INS MEETS THE CANDIDATE 11
there were two lines about the Candidate, written by America's
favourite poet : /
Ab -warm heart as ever beat
Betwixt here and judgment seat.
So they went on for perhaps an hour, by which time they
were really in the country. They came to a bridge which
crossed the river Lee, and there the Candidate suddenly stopped,
and stood looking at the water sliding below him, and at the
vista through which it wound, an avenue of green trees with
stretches of pasture and cattle grazing. "That looks fine,"
he said. "Let's go down." So they climbed a fence, and made
their way along the river for a distance, until a turn of the
stream took them out of sight of the road.
There they sat on a shelving bank, and mopped the per-
spiration from their foreheads and necks, and gazed into the
rippling current. You couldn't exactly say it was crystal clear,
for when there is a town every ten miles or so along a stream,
with factories pouring various kinds of chemicals into it, the
30b becomes too much for the restoring forces of Mother Nature.
But it would take a dirty stream indeed not to look inviting in
midsummer after a four mile walk. So presently the Candidate
turned to Jimmie, with a mischievous look upon his face.
"Comrade Higgins, were you ever in a swimmin' hole?"
"Sure I was!" said Jimmie.
"Where?"
"Everywhere. I was on the road off an' on ten years — ^till
I got married."
"Well," said the Candidate, still smiling, "what do you say ?"
"I say sure!" replied Jimmie.
He was almost beside himseU with awe, at this unbelievable
strange fortune, this real comradeship with the hero of his
dreams. To Jimmie this man had been a disembodied intel-
ligence, a dispenser of proletarian inspiration, a supernatural
being who went about the country standing upon platforms and
swaying the souls of multitudes. It had never occurred to
Jimmie that he might have a bare body, and might enjoy
splashing about in cool water like a boy playing, "hookey" from
school. The saying is that familiarity breeds contempt, but for
Jimmie it bred rapture.
2— Jan. 22.
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12 JIMMIE HIGGINS
VI
They walked home again, more slowly. The Candidate
asked Jimmie about his life, and Jiramie told the story of a
Socialist— not one of the leaders, the "intellectuals," but of the
"rank and file." Jimmie's father was a workingman out of a
job, who had left his family before Jimmie had joined it; Jim-
mie's mother had died three years later, so he did not remember
her, nor could he recall a word of the foreign language he had
spoken at home, nor did he even know what the language was.
He had been taken in charge by the city, and farmed out to a
negro woman, who had eight miserable starvelings under her
care, feeding them on gruel and water, and not even giving
them a blanket in winter. You might hot think that possible —
"I know America," put in the Candidate.
Jimmie went on. At nine he had been boarded with a wood-
saw man, who worked him sixteen hours a day and beat him
in addition; so Jimmie had skipped out, and for ten years had
lived the life of a street waif in the cities and a hobo on the
road. He had learned a bit about machinery, helping in a
garage, and then, in a rush-time, he had got a job in the Empire
Machine Shops. He had stayed in Leesville, because he had
got married; he had met his wife in a brothel, and she had
wanted to quit the life, and they had taken a chance together.
"I don't tell that to everybody," said Jimmie. "You know —
they mightn't unnerstand. But I don't mind you knowin'."
"Thank you," replied the Candidate, and put his hand on
Jimmie's shoulder. "Tell me how you became a Socialist."
There was nothing special about that, was the answer.
There had been a fellow in the shop who was always "chewing
the rag"; Jimmie had laughed at him — for his life had made
him suspicious of everybody, and if there was any sort of poli-
tician, it was just another scheme of somebody to wear a white
collar and live o£E the workers. But the fellow had kept peg-
ging away; and once Jimmie had been laid off for a couple of
months, and the family had near starved, and that had given
him time to think, and also the inclination. The fellow had
come along with some papers, and Jimmie had read them, and
it dawned upon him that here was a movement of his fellow-
workers to put an end to their torments.
"How long ago was that ?" asked the Candidate, and Jimmie
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE CANDIDATE 13
answered three years. "And you haven't lost your enthusiasm ?"
This with an intensity that surprised Jimmie. No, he an-
swered, he was not that kind. Whatever happened, he would
keep pegging away at the task of freeing labour. He would
not see the New Day, perhaps, but his children would see it; and
a fellow would work like the devil to save his children.
So they came to the city ; and the Candidate pressed Jimmie's
arm. "Comrade," he said, "I want to teU you how much good
this little trip has done me. I owe you a debt of gratitude."
"Me ?" exclaimed Jimmie.
"You have given me fresh hope and courage, and at a time
when I felt beaten. I got into town this morning, and I'd had
no sleep, and I tried to get some in the hotel and couldn't, be-
cause of the horror that's happening. I wrote a dozen telegrams
and sent them off, and then I was afraid to go back to the hotel-
room, because I knew I'd only lie awake all afternoon. But
now — I remember that our movement is rooted in the hearts
of the people !"
Jimmie was trembling. But all he could say was : "I wisht
I could do it every Sunday."
"So do I," said the Candidate.
VII
They walked down Main Street, and some ways ahead they
saw a crowd gathered, filling the side-walk beyond the curb.
"What is that?" asked the Candidate, and Jimmie answered
that it was the office of the "Herald." There must be some
news.
The other hastened his steps ; and Jimmie, striding alongside,
fell silent again, knowing that the gigantic burden and woe
of the world was falling upon his hero's shoulders once more.
They came to the edge of the crowd, and saw a bulletin in front
of the newspaper office. But it was too far away for them to
read. "What is it?" they asked.
"It says the Germans are going to march into Belgium. And
they've shot a lot of Socialists in Germany."
"Whatf And the Candidate's hand clutched Jimmie's
arm.
"That's what it says."
"My God !" exclaimed the man. And he began pushing his
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14 JIMMIE HIGGINS
way into the crowd, with Jimmie in his wake. They got to
the bulletin, and stood reading the type-written words — a bare
announcement that more than a hundred leading German
Socialists had been executed for efforts to prevent mobilisation.
They continued staring, until people pushing behind them caused
them to draw back. Outside the throng they stood, the Candi-
date gazing into space, and Jimmie gazing at the Candidate,
both of them dumb. It was a fact that they could not have
been more shocked if the news had referred to the members of
Local licesville of the Socialist Party of America.
The pain in the Candidate's face was so evident that Jimmie
groped about in his head for something comforting to say. "At
least they done what they could," he whispered.
The other suddenly burst forth: "They are heroes! They
have made the name Socialist sacred forever !" He rushed on,
as if he were making a speech — so strong becomes a life-time
habit. "They have written their names at the very top of
humanity's roll of honour ! It doesn't make any difference what
happens after this. Comrade — ^the movement has vindicated it-
self ! AH the future will be changed because of this event !"
He began to walk down the street, talking more to himself
than to Jimmie. He was borne away on the wings of his vision ;
and his companion was so thrilled that he honestly did not know
where he was. Afterwards, when he looked back upon this
scene, it remained the most wonderful event of his life; he told
the story, sooner or later, to every Socialist he met.
Presently the Candidate stopped. "Comrade," he said, "I
must go to the hotel. I want to write some telegrams. You
explain to the Committee — I'd rather not see any one till time
for the meeting. I'll find the way myself."
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CHAPTER II
JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH
T N the Opera-house were gathered Comrade Mabel Smith and
■* Comrade Meissner and Comrade Goldstein, the secretary of
the Ypsels, and the three members of the Reception Committee
— Comrade ITorwood, the rising young lawyer. Comrade Dr.
Service, and Comrade Schultze of the Carpet-weavers' Union.
To them rushed the breathless Jimmie. "Have you heard the
news ?"
"What is it?"
"A hundred Socialist leaders shot in Germany!"
"Herr Gott !" cried Comrade Schultze, in horror ; and every
one turned instinctively, for they knew how this came home to
him — ^he had a brother who was a Socialist editor in Leipzig,
and who was liable for the mobilisation.
"Where did you see it?" cried Schultze; and Jimmie told
what he knew. And then what a clamour broke forth ! Others
were called from the back part of the hall, and came running,
and there were questions and cries of dismay. Here, too, it
was as if the crime had been committed against Local Leesville
— so completely did they feel themselves one with the victims.
In a town where there was a brewery, needless to say there were
German workers a-plenty; but even had this not been so, the
feeling would have been the same, for the Socialists of the world
were one, the soul of the movement was its internationalism.
The Candidate, discovering that Jimmie was a Socialist, had
asked and received no further introduction, but had been in-
stantly his friend; and so it would have been with a comrade
from Germany, Japan, or the heart of Africa — he might not
have known another word of JJnglish, the word "Socialist" would
have sufficed.
' 15
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16 JIMMIE HIGGINS
It was a long time before they thought of any other matter;
but finally some one referred to the trouble which had fallen
upon the local — the' Candidate had not showed up. And Jimmie
exclaimed, "Why, he's here!" And instantly all turned upon
him. Where? When? How?
"He came this morning."
"And why didn't you let us know?" It was Comrade Dr.
Service of the Eeception Committee who spoke, and with a de-
cided sharpness in his tone.
"He didn't want anybody to know," said Jimmie,
"Did he want us to go to the train and think he had
failed us?"
Sure enough, it was after train-time ! Jimmie had entirely
forgotten both the train and the committee, and now he had
not the grace to hide his offence. All he could do was to tell
his story — how he had spent the afternoon walking in the coun-
try with the Candidate, and how they had gone in swimming,
and how they had got the news from the bulletin-board, and how
the Candidate had acted and what he had said. Poor Jimmie
never doubted but that his own thrill was shared by all the
others; and at the next regular meeting of the local, when Com-
rade Dr. Service sat down hard on some proposition which
Jimmie had ventured to make, the little machinist had not the
least idea what he had done to deserve the snub. He was
lacking in worldly sense, he did not understand that a prosper-
ous physician, who comes into the movement out of pure human-
itarianism, contributing his prestige and his wealth to the cer-
tain detriment of his social and business interests, is entitled
to a certain deference from the Jimmie Higginses, and even
from a Candidate!
II
You might have thought that Jimmie would be tired ; but
this was a day on which the ilesh had no claims. First he
helped Comrade Mabel in depositing upon every seat a leaflet
containing a letter from the local candidate for Congress ; then
he rushed away to catch a street-car, and spent his last nickel
to get to his home and keep his engagement with Lizzie. He
would not make with her the mistake he had made with the
Committee, you bet !
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH 17
He found that Lizzie had faithfully carried out her part
of the bargain. The three babies were done up in bright-
coloured calico dresses; she had spent the morning in washing
and ironing these garments — also her own dress, which was
half red and haK green, and of generous, almost crinoline pro-
portions. Lizzie herselJE was built on that scale, with broad
hips and bosom, big brown eyes and heavy dark hair. She was
a fine strong woman when she had shed her bedraggled house
gown, and Jimmie was proud of his capability as a chooser of
wives. It was no small feat to find a good woman, and to
recognise her, where Jimmie had found Lizzie. She was five
years older than he, a Bohemian, having been brought to
America when she was a baby. Her former name — ^you could
hardly call it her "maiden" name, considering the circumstances
— ^was Elizabeth Huszar, which she pronounced so that for a
long time Jimmie had understood it to be Eleeza Betooser.
Jimmie snatched a bite of bread and drank a cup of metallic
tasting tea, and packed the family into the baby-carriage, and
trudged the mile and a half to 'the centre of the city. When
they arrived, Lizzie took the biggest child, and Jimmie the
other two, and so they trudged into the Opera-house. On this
hot night it was like holding three stoves in your arms, and if
the babies woke up and began to cry, the parents would have
the painful choice of missing something, or else facing the
disgusted looks of every one about them. In Belgium, at the
"People's House," the Socialists maintained a creche, but the
American movement had not yet discovered that useful insti-
tution.
Already the hall was half full, and a stream of people pour-
ing in. Jimmie got himself and family seated, and then turned
his eager eyes proudly to survey the scene. The would-be-con-
gressman's circulars which he had placed in the seats were now
being read by the sitters; the banners he had so laboriously
hung were resplendent on the walls; there was a pitcher of ice
water on the speaker's table, and a bouquet of flowers and a gavel
for the chairman ; the seats in the rear of the platform for the
Liederkranz were neatly ranged, most of them already occupied
by solid German figures topped by rosy German faces: to each
detail of which achievements Jimmie had lent a hand. He
had a pride of possession in this great buzzing throng, and in
the debt they owed to him. They had no idea of it, of course;
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18 JIMMIB HIGGINS
the boobs, they thought that a meeting like this just grew out
of nothing! They paid their ten cents — ^twenty-five cents for
reserved seats — and imagined that covered everything, with per-
haps even a rake-ofE for somebody ! They would grumble, won-
dering why the Socialists persisted in charging admission for
their meetings — ^why they could not let people in free as the
Democrats and Eepublicans did. They would go to Democratic
and Eepuhlican meetings, and enjoy the brass-band and the fire-
works, pyrotechnical and oratorical — ^never dreaming it was all
a snare paid for by their exploiters' !
Well, they w;ould learn about it to-night ! Jimmie thought
of the Candidate, and how he would impress this man and that.
For Jimmie knew scores who had got tickets, and he peered
about after this one and that, and gave them a happy nod from
behind his barricade of babies. Then, craning his neck to look
behind him, suddenly Jimmie gave a start. Coming down the
aisle was Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank
of Leesville; and with him — could it be possible? — old man
Granitch, owner of the huge Empire Machine Shops where
Jimmie worked! The little machinist found himself shaking
with excitement as these two tall forms strode past him down
the aisle. He gave Lizzie a nudge with his elbow and whispered
into her esir; and all around was a buzz of whispers — ^for, of
course, everybody knew these two mighty men, the heads of
the "invisible government" of Leesville. They had come to find
out what their subjects were thinking! Well, they would get
it straight !
in
The big hall was full, and the aisles began to jam, and then
the police closed the doors — something which Jimmie took as
part of the universal capitalist conspiracy. The audience began
to chafe; until at last the chairman walked out upon the stage,
followed by several important persons who took front seats.
The singers stood up, and the leader waved his wand, and forth
came the Marseillaise: a French revolutionary hymn, sung in
English by a German organisation — ^there was Internationalism
for you ! With full realisation of the solemnity of this world-
crisis, they sang as if they hoped to be heard in Europe.
And then rose the Chairman — Comrade Dr. Service. He was
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH 19
a fine, big figure of a man, with grey moustache and beard
trimmed to a point; his swelling chest was covered by clean
white linen and tight-fitting broad-cloth, and he made a most
imposing chairman, refiecting credit on the movement. He
cleared his throat, and told them that they had come that even-
ing to listen to one of America's greatest orators, and that there-
fore he, the Chairman, would not make a speech; after which
he proceeded to make a speech. He told them what a grave
hour this was, and how the orator would tell them its meaning;
after which he proceeded to tell most of the things which the
orator would tell. This was a weakness of Comrade Dr. Service
— ^but one hesitated to point it out to him, because of his black
broad-cloth suit and his imposing appearance, and the money
he had put up to pay for the hall.
At last, however, he called on the Liederkranz again, and a
quartette sang a German song and then an encore. And then
came Comrade Gerrity, the hustling young insurance-agent who
was organiser for the local, and whose task it was to make a
"collection speech." He had humorous ways of extracting
money — "Here I am again!" he began, and everybody smiled,
knowing his bag of tricks." While he was telling his newest
funny story, Jimmie was unloading the littlest infant into
Lizzie's spare arm, and laying the other on the seat with its
head against her knee, and getting himself out into the aisle, hat
in hand and ready for business; and as soon as the organiser
ceased and the Liederkranz resumed, Jimmie set to work gather-
ing the coin. His territory was the reserved-seat section up in
front, where sat the two mighty magnates. Jimmie's knees went
weak, but he did his duty, and was tickled to see each of the
pair drop a coin into the hat, to be used in overthrowing their
power in Leesville !
IV
The hats were taken to the box-ofiice and emptied, and the
collection-takers and the Liederkranz singers resumed their seats.
An expectant hush fell — and then at last there strode out on
the stage the Candidate. What a storm broke out! Men
cheered and clapped and shouted. He took his seat modestly;
but as the noise continued, he was justified in assuming that it
was meant for him, and he rose and bowed ; as it still continued.
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20 JIMMIE HIGGINS
he bowed again, and then again. It had been the expectation
of Comrade Dr. Service to come forward and say that, of course,
it was not necessary for any one to introduce the speaker of
the evening; but the audience, as if it had read the worthy
doctor's intention, kept on applauding, until the Candidate him-
self advanced, and raised his hand, and began his speech.
He did not stop for any oratorical preliminaries. This, he
said — ^and his voice trembled with emotion — ^was the solemnest
hour that men had ever faced on earth. That day on the bulle-
tin-board of their local newspaper he had read tidings which
had moved him as he had never before been moved in his life,
which had almost deprived him of the power to walk upon a
stage and address an audience. Perhaps they had not heard
the news; he told it to them, and there sprang from the audi-
ence a cry of indignation.
Yes, they might well protest, said the speaker; nowhere on
all the bloody pages of history could you find a crime more re-
volting than this! The masters of Europe had gone mad in
their lust for power; they had called down the vengeance of
mankind upon their crowned and coronetted heads. Here to-
night he would tell them — and the speaker's hoarse and raucous
voice mounted to a shout of rage — he would tell them that in
signing the death-warrant of those heroic martyrs, they had
sealed the doom of their own order, they had torn out the foun-
dation-stones from the structure of capitalist society! The
speaker's voice seemed to lift the audience from its seats, and
the last words of the sentence were drowned in a tumult of ap-
plause.
Silence fell again, and the man went on. He had peculiar
mannerisms on the platform. His lanky form was never still
for an instant. He hurried from one end of the stage to the
other ; he would crouch and bend as if he were going to spring
upon the audience, a long, skinny finger would be shaken before
their faces, or pointed as if to drive his words into their hearts.
His speech was a torrent of epigram, sarcasm, invective. He
was bitter; if you knew nothing about the man or his cause,
you would find this repellent and shocking. You had to know
what his life had been — an unceasing conflict with oppression;
he had got his Socialist education in jail, where he had been
sent for trying to organise the wage-slaves of a gigantic corpora-
tion. His rage was the rage of a tender-hearted poet, a lover
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HEARS A SPEECH 21
of children and of Nature, driven mad by the sight of torment
wantonly inflicted. And if ever he had seemed to you an ex-
tremist, too angry to be excused, here to-night he had his
vindication, here to-night you saw him as a prophet. For
now the master-class had torn the mask from its face, and
revealed to the whole world what were its moral standards ! At
last men saw their rulers face to face!
They had plunged mankind into a pit of lunacy. "They
call it war," cried the speaker; "but I call it murder." And
he went on to picture to them what was happening in Europe
at that hour — he brought the awful nightmare before their eyes,
he showed them homes blown to pieces, cities given to the flames,
the bodies of men pierced by bullets or torn to fragments by
shells. He pictured a bayonet plunged into the abdomen of a
man ; he made you see the ghastly deed, and feel its shuddering
wickedness. Men and women and children sat spell-bound; and
for once no man could say aloud or feel in his heart that the
pictures of a Socialist agitator were overdrawn — no, not even
Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of Lees-
viUe, or old Abel Granitch, proprietor of the Empire Machine
Shops !
And what was the cause of this blackest of calamities ? The
speaker went on to show that the determining motive was not
racial jealousy, but commercial greed. The fountain-head of
the war was world-capitalism, clamouring for markets, seeking
to get rid of its surplus products, to keep busy its hordes of
wage-slaves at home. He analysed the various factors; and
now, with the shadow of the European storm over their heads —
now at last men and women would listen, they would realise that
'the matter concerned them. He warned them — let them not
think that they were safe from the hoofs of this war-monster,
just because they were three thousand miles away ! Capitalism
was a world phenomenon, and all the forces of parasitism and
exploitation which had swept Europe into this tragedy were
active here in America. The money-masters, the profit-seekers,
would leap to take advantage of the collapse over the seas ; there
would be jealousies, disputes — let the audience understand, once
for all, that if world-capitalism did not make this a world-war,
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22 JIMMIE HIGGINS
it would be only because the workers of America took warning,
and made their preparations to frustrate the conspiracy.
This was what he had come for, this was the heart of his
message. Many of those who listened were refugees from the
old world, having fled its oppressions and enslavements. He
pleaded with them now, as a man whose heart was torn by more
suffering than he could bear — let there be one part of the fair
garden of earth into which the demons of destruction might not
break their way ! Let them take warning in time, let them or-
ganise and establish their own machinery of information and
propaganda — so that when the crisis came, when the money-
masters of America sounded the war-drums, "there might be —
not the destruction and desolation which these masters willed,
but the joy and freedom of the Co-operative Commonwealth !
"How many years we Socialists have warned you !" he cried.
"But you have doubted us, you have believed what your ex-
ploiters have told you! And now, in this hour of crisis, you
look at Europe and discover who are the real friends of human-
ity, of civilisation. What voice comes over the seas, protest-
ing against war? The Socialist voice, and the Socialist voice
alone! And to-nightj once more, you hear it in this hall ! You
men and women of America, and you exiles from all corners
of the world — ^make this pledge with me — make it now, before
it is too late, and stand by it when the hour of crisis comes!
Swear it by the blood of our martyred heroes, those slaughtered
German Socialists — swear that come what will, and when and
how it will, that no power on earth or in hell beneath the earth
shall' draw you into this fratricidal war ! Make this resolution,
send this message to all the nations of the earth — ^that the men
of all nations and all races are your brothers, and that never
will you consent to shed their blood. If the money-masters and
the exploiters want war, let them have it, but let it be among
themselves! Let them' take the bombs and shells they have
made and go out against one another ! Let them blow their own
class to pieces — but let them not seek to lure the working-people
into their quarrels !"
Again and again, in answer to such exhortations, the audi-
ence broke out into shouts of applause. Men raised their hands
in solemn pledge; and the Socialists among them went home
from the meeting with a new gravity in their faces, a new con-
secration in their hearts. They had made a vow, and they
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JIMMIE HIGKJINS HEARS A SPEECH 23
woiild keep it — ^yes, even though it meant sharing the fate of
their heroic German comrades !
— And then in the morning they opened their papers, looking
eagerly for more details about the fate of the heroic German
comrades, and they found none. Day after day, morning and
afternoon, they looked for more details, and found none. On
the contrary, to their unutterable bewilderment, they learned
that the leaders of the German Social-democracy had voted for
the war-budgets, and that the rank and file of the movement
were hammering out the goose-step on the roads of Belgium and
France! They could not bring themselves to believe it; even
yet they have not brought themselves to realise that the story
which thrilled them so on that fatal Sunday afternoon was
only a cunning lie sent out by the German war-lords, in the
hope of causing the Socialists of Belgium and France and Eng-
land to revolt, and so give the victory to Germany !
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CHAPTEE III
JIMMIB HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSTTE
'T'HE grey flood of frightfulness rolled over Belgium; and
•*■ every morning, and again in the afternoon, the front page
of the Leesville newspaper was like the explosion of a bomb.
Twenty-five thousand Germans killed in one assault on Li6ge ;
a quarter of a million Bussians massacred or drowned in the
swamps of the Masurian lakes; so it went, until the minds of
men reeled. They saw empires and civilisations crumbling be-
fore their eyes, all those certainties upon which their lives had ,
been built vanishing as a mist at sunrise.
Hitherto, Jimmie Higgins had always refused to take a
daily paper. No capitalist lies for him; he would save his
pennies for the Socialist weeklies! But now he had to have
the news, and tired as he was after the day's work, he would
sit on his front porch with his ragged feet against a post, spell-
ing out the despatches. Then he would stroll down to the
cigar-stand of Comrade Stankewitz, a wizened-up little Rou-
manian Jew who had lived in Europe and had a map, and
would show Jimmie which was Russia, and why Germany
marched across Belgium, and why England had to interfere. It
was good to have a friend who was a man of travel and a
linguist — especially when the fighting became centred about
places such as Przemysl and Przasnyaz!
Then every Friday night would be the meeting of the local.
Jimmie would be the first to arrive, eager to hear every word
the better informed comrades had to say, and thus to complete
the education which society had so cruelly neglected.
Before the war was many weeks old, Jimmie's head was in
a state of utter bewilderment; never would he have thought it
possible for men to hold so many conflicting opinions, and to
24
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE • 25
hold them with such passionate intensity ! It seemed as if the
world-conflict were being fought out in miniature in Leesville.
At the third meeting after the war began, the prosperous Dr.
Service arose, and in his impressive oratorical voice moved that
the local should send a telegram to the National Executive Com-
mittee of the party, requesting it to protest against the invasion
of Belgium; also a telegram to the President of the United
States, requesting him to take the same action. And then
what pandemonium broke loose! Comrade Schneider, the
brewery- worker, demanded to know whether Local Leesville had
ever requested the National Executive Committee to protest
against the invasion of Ireland. Had the Socialist party ever
requested the President of the United States to protect Egypt
and India from oppression?
Comrade Dr. Service, who had remained on his feet, began
a passionate denunciation of the outrages perpetrated by the
German army in Belgium ; at which Comrade Schneider's florid
face turned purple. He demanded whether all men did not
know that France had first invaded Belgium, and that the Bel-)
gians had welcomed the French ? Weren't all the Belgian forts
turned toward Germany? Of course! answered the doctor.
But what of that? Was it a crime for a man to know who
was going to attack him?
The purple-faced brewer, without heeding this question, de-
manded : Did not all the world know that the French' had begun
the war with an aeroplane bombardment of the German cities?
The Comrade Doctor, his face also purpling, replied that all the
world knew this for a tale sent out by the German propaganda
machine. How did all the world know it? roared Schneider.
By a cable-censorship controlled by British gold?
Jimmie was much excited by this dispute. The only trouble
was that he found himself in agreement with both sides, and
with an impulse to applaud both sides. And also he applauded
the next speaker, young Bmil Forster, a pale, slender, and fair-
haired youth, a designer in the carpet-factory. Emil was one
who seldom raised his voice in the meetings, but when he did,
he was heard with attention, for he was a student and a thinker;
he played the flute, and his father, also a member of the local,
played the clarinet, so the pair were invaluable on "social even-
ings." In his gentle, dispassionate voice he explained how it
was not easy for people in America to understand the dilemma
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26 JIMMIE HIGGINS
of the German Socialists in the present crisis. We must re-
member that the Germans were fighting, not merely England
and France, but Eussia; and Eussia was a huge, half-divilised
land, under perhaps the most cruel government in the world.
H®w would Americans feel if up in Canada there were three
hundred millions of people, ignorant, enslaved, and being drilled
in huge armies?
All right, retorted Dr. Service. But then why did not
the Germans fight Eussia, and let France and Belgium alone?
Because, answered Emil, the French would npt permit that.
We in America thought of France as a republic, but we must
remember that it was a capitalist republic, a nation ruled by
bankers ; and these bankers had formed an alliance with Eussia,
the sole possible aim of which was the destruction of Germany.
France had loaned something like four billions of dollars to
Eussia.
' And then Schneider leaped up. Yes, and it was that money
which had provided the cannon and shells that were now being
used iu laying waste East Prussia, the land of Schneider's birth !
II
The temper of both sides was rising higher and higher, and
the neutrals made efforts to calm the dispute. Comrade
Stankewitz, Jimmie's cigar-store friend, cried out in his shrill,
eager voice: Vy did ve vant to git mixed up vit them European
fights? Didn't ve know vat bankers and capitalists vere? Vat
difference did it make to any vorkingman vether he vas robbed
from Paris or Berlin? "Sure, I know," said Stankewitz, "I
vorked in both them cities, and I vas every bit so hungry under
Eothschild as I vas under the Kaiser."
Then Comrade Gerrity, organiser of the local, took his turn.
Whatever they did, said Gerrity, they must keep their neutrality
in this war; the one hope of the world just now was in the
Socialist movement — ^that it would preserve the international
spirit, and point a war-torn world back to peace. Especially
just now in Local Leesville they must keep their heads, for they
were beginning the most important move in their history, the
establishment of a weekly paper. Nothing must get in the way
of that !
Yes, said Comrade Service, but they would have to determine
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE 27
the policy of the' paper, would they not ? Were they going to
protest against injustice at home, and pay no attention to the
most flagrant act of international injustice in the history of the
world ? Was a workingman's paper to say nothing against the
enslavement of the workingmen of Europe by the Kaiser and his
militarist crew? He, Dr. Service, would wash his hands of
such a paper.
And then the members of the local gazed at one another in
dismay. Every man and woman of them knew that the pros-
perous doctor had headed the list of subscribers for the soon-to-
be-born Leesville "Worker" with the sum of five hundred dol-
lars. The thought of losing this munificent contribution
brought consternation even to the Germans !
But there was one member of the local whom no menace ever
daunted. He rose up now — lean, sallow almost to greenness,
with black hair falling into his eyes, and a cough that racked
him at every other sentence. Bill Murray was his name ; "Wild
Bill," the papers called him. The red card he carried had
been initialled by the secretaries of some thirty locals all over the
country. He had lost a couple of toes under a tractor-plough in
Kansas, and half a hand in a tin-plate mill in Alleghany County ;
he had been clubbed insensible in a strike in Chicago, and tarred
and feathered in a free speech fight in San Diego. And now
he told the members of Local Leesville what he thought of those
tea-party revolutionists who pandered to the respectability of a
church-ridden community. "Wild Bill" had watched the dis-
cussions over "Section Six," the provision in the constitution of
the party against sabotage and violence; the very same persons
who had been enthusiastic for that bit of middle-class fakery
were now trying to line up the local for the defence of the British
sea-power ! What the hell difference did it make to any work-
ingiian whether or not the Kaiser got a railroad to Bagdad?
Of course, if a man had been to school in Britain, and had a
British wife, and felt himself a British gentleman — you could
feel the shudder that went through the gathering, for every one
knew that this was Dr. Service — all right, let that man take the
first ship across the ocean and enlist; but let him not try to
turn an American Socialist local into a recruiting-agency for
British landlords and aristocrats.
This brought to his feet Comrade Norwood, the young lawyer,
who had helped to put through "Section Six" in the National
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28 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Convention of the party. If there were people so keen against
this Section, why couldn't they get out of the party and form
an organisation of their own?
"Because," answered Murray, "we prefer sabotage to strik-
ing!"
"In other words," continued Norwood, "you stay in the local,
and by a campaign of sneering and personalities you drive your
opponents out !"
"This is the first meeting for some months that we have had
the pleasure of seeing Comrade Norwood," said "Wild Bill,"
with venomous placidity. "Perhaps he knew that we were to
be asked t6 raise a regiment for Kitchener !"
And then again Comrade Stankewitz was on his feet, with
distress in his thin, eager fade. "Comrades, all this vill not
get us anyvere! There is but vun question ve have to answer,
are ve internationalists, or are ve not ?"
"It seems to me," continued Norwood, "the question is, are
we anti-nationalists ?"
"All right !" shrilled the little Jew. "I vill leave it so— I
am an anti-nationalist! Such must all Socialists be!"
"But I don't understand it so," declared the young lawyer.
"It is easy for some who belong to a race which has not had
a country for two thousand years "
"And who's dealing in personalities now?" sneered "Wild
Bill."
Ill
So matters went in Local Leesville. The upshot of the
debate was that Comrade Dr. Service declared that he washed
his hands of the Socialist Party from that time on. And the
Comrade Doctor buttoned his handsome black coat over his
stately chest and stalked out of the room. The greater part of
the remainder of that meeting was devoted- to a discussion of
him and his personality and his influence in the local. He was
no Socialist at all, declared Schneider, he was an English aris-
tocrat, or the next thing to it — his wife had two brothers in the
British Expeditionary Force, and a nephew already enlisted in
the Territorials, and a visiting cousin on the point of setting
out for Canada, as the quickest way of getting into the mix-up.
But in spite of all these damaging circumstances, the local was
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JIMMIB HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE 29
not disposed to give up its most generous supporter, and Com-
rade Gerrity, the organiser, and Comrade Goldstein of the Ypsels
were constituted a committee to go and plead with him and try
to bring him back into the fold.
As for Jimmie Higgins, his problem was not so complicated.
He had no relatives anywhere that he knew of; and if he had
any "country", the country had failed to make him aware of the
fact. The first thing the "country" had done for him was to
put him into the hands of a negro woman who fed him gruel
and water and gave him no blanket in winter. To Jimmie this
country was an aggregation of owners and bosses, who made you
sweat hard for your wages, and sent the police to club you if
you made any kick. A soldier Jimmie thought of as a fellow
who came to help the police when they got hard pushed. This
soldier walked with his chest out and his nose in the air, and
Jimmie referred to him as a "tin willie", and summed him up
as a traitor to the working class.
And so it was easy for our little machinist to agree with the
Roumanian Jewish cigar-seller in calling himself an "anti-na-
tionalist". It was easy for him to laugh and applaud when
"Wild Bill" demanded what the hell difference it made to any
workingman whether or not the Kaiser got a railroad to Bag-
dad. He did not thrill in the least over the story of the British
army falling back step by step across France, and holding ten
times their number of invaders. The papers called this "hero-
ism" ; but to Jimmie it was a lot of poor boobs who had had a
flag waved in their eyes, and had sold themselves for a shilling
to the landlords of their country. In one of the Socialist papers
that Jimmie read, there appeared every week a series of comic
pictures in which the workingman was figured as a guileless fool
by the name of "Henry Dubb". Poor Henry always believed
what he was told, and at the end of each adventure he got a
thump on the top of his nut which caused stars to sprout over
the page. And of all the many adventures of Henry Dubb, the
most absurd were when he got himself into a uniform. Jimmie
would cut these pictures out and pass them round in the shop,
and among his neighbours in the row of tenement-shacks where
he lived.
Nor did it make much difference in Jimmie's feelings when
he read of German atrocities. To begin with, he did not believe
in them; they were just a part of the poison-gas of war. When
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30 JIMMIB HIGGINS
men were willing to stab one another with bayonets, and to blow
one another to pieces with bombs, they would be willing to lie
about one another, you might be sure ; the governments would lie
deliberately, as one of the ways of making the soldiers fight
harder. What? argued Jimmie: tell him that Germans were a
lot of savages ? When he lived in a city with hundreds of them,
and met them all the time at the local?
Here, for instance, was the Forster family; where would you
find a kinder lot of people ? They were much above Jimmie in
social standing — ^they ovmed their own home, and had whole
shelves full of books, and a pile of music as high as yourself ; but
recently Jimmie had stopped on a Socialist errand, and they had
invited him in to supper, and there was a thin, worn, sweet-faced
little woman, and four growing daughters — ^nice, gentle, quiet
girls — and two sons younger than Emil; they had a pot-roast of
beef, and a big dish of steaming potatoes, and another of sauer-
kraut, and some queer pudding that Jimmie had never heard
of; and then they had music — they were fairly dippy on music,
that family, they would play all night if you would listen, old
Hermann Forster with his stout, black-bearded face turned up
as if he were seeing heaven. And you wanted Jimmie to believe
that a man like that would carry a baby on a bayonet, or rape
a girl and then cut off her hands !
Or there was Comrade Meissner, a neighbour of Jimmie's,
a friendly little chatter-box of a man who was foreman in charge
of a dozen women from as many different races of the earth,
packing bottles in the glass-works. The tears would come into
Meissner's pale blue eyes when he told how he was made to drive
these women, sick, or in the family way, or whatever it might be.
And remember, it was an American superintendent and an
American owner who gave Meissner his orders — ^not a German !
The little man could not quit his job, because he had a brood
of children and a wife with something the matter with her — ^no-
body could tell what it was, but she took all kinds of patent
medicines, which kept the family poor. Sometimes Lizzie Hig-
gins would go over to see her, and the two would sit and ex-
change ideas about ailments and the prices of food; and mean-
time Meissner would come over to where Jimmie was minding
the Jimmie babies, and the two would puff their cobs and dis-
cuss the disputes' between the "politicians" and the "direct ac-
tionists" in the local. And you wanted Jimmie to believe that
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE 31
men like Meissner were standing old Belgian women against the
walls of chnrches and shooting them full of bullets !
IV
But as the weeks passed, the evidence of atrocities began to
pile in, and so Jimmie Higgins was driven to a second line of
defence. Well, maybe so, but then all the armies were alike.
Somebody told Jimmie the saying of a famous general, that war
was hell; and Jimmie took to this — it was exactly what he
wanted to believe I War was a rietum to savagery, and the worse
it became, the better Jimmie's argument went. He was not
interested in men's efforts to improve war, by agreeing that they
would kiU in this way but not in that way, they would kill this
kind of people but not that kind.
These ideas Jimmie got from his fellow members in the local,
and from the Socialist papers which came each week, and from
the many speakers he heard. These speakers were men and
women of burning sincerity, and with a definite and entirely
logical point of view. Whether they talked about war, crime,
prostitution, political corruption, or any other social evil, what
they wanted was to tear down the old ramshackle structure, and
to put in its place something new and intelligent. You might
possibly bring them to admit slight differences between capitalist
governments ; but when it came to a practical issue, to an action,
you found that to these people all governments were alike — and
never so much alike as in war-time !
Nor was there ever such need for Socialist protest! Very
quickly it became apparent that it was not going to be an easy
matter for America to keep out of this world-vortex. Because
American workingmen did not get a living wage, and could not
buy what they produced, there was a surplus product which had
to be sold abroad; so the business of American manufacturers
depended upon foreign markets — and here suddenly were aU
the principal trading nations of the world plunging in to buy
all the American products they could, and to keep their enemies
from buying any at all!
A woman speaker came to Leesville, a shrewd little body with
a sharp tongue, who had these disputes figured out, and gave
them in a dialogue, as in a play. Kaiser Bill says, "I want cot-
ton." John Bull says, "You shan't have it." Uncle Sam says.
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32 JIMMIB HIGGINS
"But he has a right to have it. Get out of the way, John Bull."
But John Bull says, "I will hold up your ships and take them
into my ports." Uncle Sam says, "No, no! Don't do that!"
But John BuU does it. And then the Kaiser says, "What sort
of a fellow are you, to let John Bull steal your ships ? Are you
a coward, or are you secretly a friend of , this old villain ?" And
Uncle Sam says, "John Bull, give me my German mail, and my
German newspapers, at least." But John Bull answers, "You've
got a lot of German spies in your country — ^that's why I can't
let you have your mail. You can't have German papers because
the Kaiser fills them fuU of lies about me." And the Kaiser
says, "If John Bull won't let me have my cotton and my meat
and all the rest of it, why don't you stop sending anything ta
him ?" He waits a while, and then he says : "If you won't stop
sending things to that old villain, I'll sink the ships, that's alL"
And Uncle Sam cries, "But that's against the law!" "Whose
law ?" says the Kaiser. "What sort of a law is it that works only
one way?" "But there are Americans on those ships!" cries
Uncle Sam. "Well, keep them off the ships!" answers the
Kaiser. "Keep them off till John Bull obeys the law."
'; Put in this way, the situation was easy for any Jimmie Hig-
gins to understand; and month by month, as the debate con-
tinued, Jimmie's own point of view became clearer. He was not
interested in sending cotton to England, and still less in send-
ing meat. He thought he was ludiy if he had a bit of meat
twice a week himself, and it was plain enough to him that if the
fellows who owned the meat were not allowed to ship it abroad,
they might sell it in America at a price that a workingman could
pay. Nor was that just greediness on Jimmie's part; he was
perfectly willing to go without meat where an ideal was involved
• — look at the time and money and energy he gave to Socialism !
The point was that by sending goods to Europe, you helped to
keep up the fighting; whereas, if you quit, the fools must come
to their senses. So the Jimmie Higginses worked out their cam-
paign-slogan : "Starve the War and Feed America !"
In the third month of the war, disturbing rumours began to
run about Leesville, Old Abel Granitch had taken on a contract
with the Belgian government, and the Empire Machine Shops
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DEBATES THE ISSUE 33
were going to make shells. Nothing appeared about this in the
local papers, but everybody claimed to have first-hand knowledge,
and although no two people told the same story, there must be
some basis of truth in them all. And then one day, to Jimmie's
consternation, he heard from Lizzie that the agent of the land-
lord had called and served notice that they had three days to
vacate the premises. Old man Granitch had bought the land,
and the Shops were to build out that way. Jimmie could hardly
credit his ears, for he was six city blocks from the nearest part
of the Shops; but it was true, so every one declared; aU that
land had been bought up, and half a thousand families, children
and old people and sick people, men on their death-beds and
women in child-birth — all had three days in which to move them-
selves to new quarters.
Let any one imagine the confusion, the babel of tongues, the
women on their porches calling to one another, asking and giving
advice! The denunciations and the scoldings and the threats
to resort to law ! The raids upon landlords, and how the prices
went up! Jimmie hurried off to Comrade Meissner, who had
bought a home and was paying instalments on it; Meissner,
being a Socialist, did not try to gouge him, but was glad to have
help in making his payments. There were no partitions in the
garret which Jimmie rented, but they would hang curtains and
make out somehow, and Lizzie would use Mrs. Meissner's stove
until they could get something fixed upstairs. And then to the
comer grocery, to borrow a hand-cart and get started at moving
the furniture; for to-morrow everybody would be moving, and
you would not be able to get anything on wheels for love or
money. Until after midnight Jimmie and Meissner worked at
transporting babies and bedding and sauce-pans and chairs and
chicken-coops piled on the hand-cart.
And next morning at the shop, more excitement! It was
four years now that Jimmie had been in the employ of old man
Granitch, and in all that time he had done but one thing; stand-
ing in a vast room amid a confusion of whirling belts and wheels,
a roar and screech and grumble and whir that completely an-
nulled one of the five senses. There came in front of him,
mechanically propelled, a tray full of small oblong blocks of
steel, which he fed, one with each hand, into two places in a
machine; the machine took these blocks, and rounded off one
end, and ground the rest a little smaller, and put a thread on it,
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34 JIMMIE HIGGINS
and it dropped into a tray on the other side, a bolt. Because
Jimmie had to watch the machine, and keep the oil-cups full,
his was classed as semi-skilled labour, and was paid nineteen and
a half cents an hour. Some time ago an expert had studied the
process, and figured that with labour at that price it was one-
' eighth of a cent per hour cheaper to have the work done by
hand than to install a machine to do it; and so for four years
Jimmie had his job, standi^ag on one spot from seven to twelve,
and again from twelve-thirty to six, and carrying home every
Saturday night the sum of twelve dollars and twenty-nine cents.
You might have, thought that the huge machine-works would
have made it twelve-thirty for good measure ; but if so, you do
not understand large scale production.
And now, all of an instant and without warning, Jimmie's
precisely ordered and habitual world came to an end. He was
at his post when the whistle blew, but the machinery did not
move. And presently came the Irish foreman with the curt
announcement that the machinery would never move again, at
least not on that spot; it was to be cleared out of the way, and
new machinery set up, and they were to fall to forthwith with
wrenches and hammers and crow-bars to make a new world !
So for a week they did; and meantime, every night as he
went home, Jimmie saw people's homes being wrecked — roofs
falling in clouds of dust, and gangs of men loading the debris
into huge motor-trucks. Before long they had got acetylene
torches, and were working all night— gangs of labourers who
lived in tents on vacant lots outside the city and kept their
canvas cots warm with double shifts of sleepers. Jimmie Hig-
gins realisied the dreadful truth, that in spite of all the agitation
of Socialists, the war had actually come to Leesville !
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CHAPTER IV
JIMMIE HIGGINS STRIKES IT RICH
IT was some time before Jiimnie understood the nature of the
•*■ new machinery he was helping to set up. It was nobody's
business to explain, for he was only a pair of hands and a strong
back; he was not supposed to be a brain — while as for a soul or
a conscience, nobody was supposed to be that, Eussian agents
had come to Leesville with seventeen millions of the money
which the Paris bankers had put up; and so over-night whole
blocks of homes were swept out of existence, and a huge new
steel structure was rising, and on the spot where for four years
Jimmie had made certain motions of the hands, they were pre-
paring to manufacture new machinery for the quantity produc-
tion of shell-casings.
When Jimmie had definitely learned what was in process, he
was brought face to face with a grave moral problem. Could he,
as an international Socialist, spend his time making shells to kill
his German comrades? Could he spend his time making the
machinery to make the shells ? Would he take the bribe of old
man Granitch, a workingman's share of the hideous loot — an
increase of four cents an hour, with the prospect of another four
when the works got started? Jimmie had to meet this issue,
just when it happened that one of his babies was sick, and he
was cudgelling his head to think how he could ever squeeze out
of his scanty wage the money to pay the doctor !
The answer was easy to Comrade .Schneider, the stout and
sturdy brewer, who stood up in the local and spoke with bitter
scorn of those Socialists who stayed on in the pay of that old
hell-devil Granitch. Schneider wanted a strike in the Empire
Machine Shops, and he wanted it that very night! But then
rose Comrade Mabel Smith, whose brother was a bookkeeper for
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36 JIMMIE HIGGINS
the concern. It was all very well for Schneider to talk, but sup-
pose some one were to demand that the brewery-workers should
strike and refuse to make beer for munition-workers ? That was
a mere quibble, argued Schneider; but the other denied this,
declaring that it was an illustration of what the worker was up
against, with no control of his own destiny, no voice as to what
use should be made of his product. A man might say that he
would have nothing to do with munition-work, and go out into
the fields as a farmer — to raise grain to be shipped to the
armies ! The solidarity of capitalist society was such that no-
where could a man find work that would not in some way be
helping to kill his fellow-workers in other lands.
Jimmie Higgins talked solemnly to Lizzie of moving to Hub-
bardtown — tempted thereto by the signs he saw in an agency
which had been set up in a vacant store on Main Street. The
Hubbard Engine Company was trying to steal old man Gran-
itch's workers, and was offering thirty-two cents an hour for
semi-skilled labour ! Jimmie made inquiry and learned that the
company was extending its .plant for gas-engines; for what pur-
pose was not told, but men suspected that the engines were to go
into motor-boats and be used for the sinking of submarines. So
Jimmie decided that Comrade Mabel Smith was right ; he might
as well stay where he was. He would take as much money as he
could get and use his new-found prosperity to make trouble for
the war-profiteers. It was the first time in his life that Jimmie
had ever been free from money-fear. He could now get a job
anywhere at good wages, and so he did not care a hang what
the boss might say. He would talk to his fellow-workers, and
explain the war to them : a war of the capitalists at present, but
destined perhaps to turn into another kind of war, which the
capitalists would not find to their taste !
II
It was wonderful, incredible, the thing which had befallen
Leesville. Full of hatred for the system as Jimmie Higgins
was, he could not but be thrilled by what he saw. Thousands of
men pouring into the once commonplace little city — ^men of a
score of races and creeds, men old and young, white and black —
even a few yellow ones ! It was a boom like San Francisco in
'49 ; the money which the Paris bankers had paid to the Eussian
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JIMMIE HIGGINS STRIKES IT RICH 37
government, and which the Russian government had paid to old
man Granitch, spread out in a golden flood over the city. The
speculators raised the price of land, the house-owners raised
rents, the hotels doubled their prices, and even so, had to put
people to bed on pool tables ! Even Tom Callahan of the "Buf-
feteria" had to hire two assistants, and build an extension, and
move his kitchen into the back yard.
At night the hordes of strangers roamed the streets, and
Lipsky's "Picture Palace" was packed to the doors, and the "Bon
March6 Shoe Store" had a new bankruptcy sale every week, and
the swinging doors of the saloons were never stiU for hours on
end. Of course, where so many men were gathered, there came
women — swarms of women of as many races as the men. Lees-
ville had some two score churches, and had kept hitherto a care-
ful pretence of decency; but now all barriers went down, the
police-force-of the city was overwhelmed by the new population —
or was it by the golden flood from Paris by way of Russia ? Any-
way, you saw sights on Main Street which confirmed your dis-
trust of war.
Never had there been such an opportunity for Socialist prop-
aganda! All these hordes of men, collected from the ends of
the earth, torn loose from home ties, from religion, from old
habits of every sort, thrown together promiscuously, living in
any old way, ready for any old thing that might come along ! In
former days these men had taken what was handed out to them
by their newspaper editors and preachers and 'politicians; they
had engaged in commonplace and respectable activities, had
lived tame and unadventurous lives. But now they were making
munitions ; and you might say what you pleased, but there was
a certain psychological condition incidental to the making of
munitions. An employer could look pious and talk about law
and order, so long as he was setting his men to hoeing weeds or
shingling roofs or grading track; but what could he say to his
men when he was making shells to be used in blowing men to
pieces ?
So came the Socialist and the Anarchist and the Syndicalist
and the Industrial Unionist. Look at these masters, look at this
civilisation they have produced! In the world's oldest centres
of culture ten or twenty millions of wage-slaves have been hurled
together — and then the Socialist or Anarchist or Syndicalist or
Industrial Unionist would describe in detail the bloody and,
i
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38 JIMMIE HIG6INS
bestial operation's which these ten or twenty millions of men were
performing. And each day's papers would bring fresh details
for them to cite — ^famine and pestilence, fire and slaughter,
poison gas, incendiary bomb^, torpedoed passenger-ships. Look
at these pious hypocrites, the masters, with their refinement,
their culture, their religion ! These are the people you are asked
to follow, it is for such as these that you have been chained to
the machines all these weary, toil-crowded years !
HI
On every street corner, in every meeting-room, in every spot
where the workers gathered at the noon hour, you would hear
such arguments ; and you would find men listening to them —
men who perhaps had never listened to such arguments before.
They would nod, and their faces would become grim — ^yes, the
people up on top. must be a rotten lot! Here in America, sup-
posed to be a land of liberty and all that— here they were just
the same, they were crowding to the trough to drink the blood
that was poured out in Europe. Of course, they covered their
greed with a camouflage of syinpathy for the Allies; but did
anybody believe that old man Granitch loved the Eussian gov-
ernment? Certainly nobody in Leesville did; they knew that
he was "getting his," and their hearts hardened with a grim
resolve to "get theirs."
At first they thought they were succeeding. Wages went up,
almost for the asking; never did the unskilled man have so much
money in his pocket, while the man who could pretend to any
skill at all found himself in the plutocratic class. But quickly
men discovered the worm in this luscious war-fruit; prices were
going up almost as fast as wages — in some places even faster.
The, sums you had to pay to the landlord surpassed belief; a
single workingman would be asked two or three dollars a week
for twelve hours' use of a mattress and blanket, which in the
old days he might have got for fifty cents. Pood was scarce and
of poor quality; before long you found yourself being asked to
pay six cents for a hunk of pie or a cup of coffee — and then seven
cents, and then ten. If you kicked, the proprietor would tell
you a long tale about what he had to pay for rent and labour
and supplies ; and you could not deny that' he was probably right.
About the only thing that did not go up was a postage-stamp;
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JIMMIB HIGGINS STRIKES IT RICH 39
and the Socialist would point to this and explain that the Post
OfiSce was run by Uncle Sam, instead of by Abel Granitch !
Every rise in price was a fresh stick of fuel for the Socialist
machine, and gave new power to their propaganda of "Starve
the War and Feed America!" The Socialist saw millions of
tons of goods being loaded onto steamships and sent to Europe
to be destroyed in war ; he saw the workers of Europe becoming
enslaved by a bonded debt to a class of parasites in America, he
saw America being drawn closer and closer to the abyss of the
strife. The Socialist loved no part of this process. He clamoured
for an embargo — not merely on munitions, but on food and
everything, until the war-lords of Europe came to their senses.
He urged the workers to strike, and thus force the politicians to
declare the embargo.
Especially, of course, he urged this if he were a German or
an Austrian, a Hungarian or a Bohemian. The latter were sub-
ject races, but they could not in these early days see beyond the
fact that their fathers and brothers and cousins were being
killed by the shells that were made in the Empire Machine
Shops. With them stood also the Jews, who hated the Russian
government so bitterly that nothing else mattered; also the
Irish, whose first idea in life was to pay back John Bull for his
sins of several centuries, and whose second idea was to take part
in any sort of shivaree that was going. It was quite bewilder-
ing to Jimmie Higgins ; he had wrestled with Catholics of sev-
eral nations and got nothing but hard words for his pains, but
now all of a sudden Tom Callahan of the "Buffeteria" and Pat
Grogan of the grocery on the corner made the discovery that
maybe he was not such a fool after all !
IV
As a result of this ferment among the workers, the local had
doubled its membership, and was holding soap-box meetings on
a comer off Main Street on two evenings every week. The plans
for the weekly paper, however, still hung fire. Comrade Dr.
Service had lost his two brothers-in-law — one in the battle of
Mons, and the other in the first frightful gas-attack at Ypres,
where whole regiments of men were caught unprepared, and died
in awful torments. Also two of his wife's cousins had paid the
price — one was blind, and the other a prisoner at Ruhleben, the
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40 JIMMIB HIGGINS
worst fate of all. So Dr. Service made one last indignant speech
in the local, and took his five hundred dollars to start a chapter
of the Bed Cross !
But now the Germans and the war-haters in the local were
a-sking themselves, was Socialism to languish in the city of the
Empire Machine Shops, just because one rich man with an Eng-
lish wife had proved a renegade? Such a question answered
itself ! The work of collecting subscription lists was taken up
more vigorously than ever; and already more than half the lost
five hundred had been made up, when one evening John Meissner
came home with a most amazing story.
It was his custom to stop at Sandkuhl's for one glass of beer
on his way home in the evening ; and when anybody in the saloon
got to arguing about the war, he would take his chance to put in
a little propaganda. This time he had made a regular speech,
declaring that the workers would soon put an end to the muni-
tion-business ; and a fellow had got to talking with him, asking
him all sorts of questions about himself, and about the local.
How many members did it have? How many of them felt as
Meissner did? What were they doing about it? Pretty soon
the man had drawn Meissner to a table in the back part of the
place, asking about the proposed paper, and what its policy was
to be ; also about the unions in the city, and their policy, and the
personalities of the leaders.
The man had said he was a Socialist, but Meissner did not
believe him. Meissner thought he must be some kind of union
organiser. There had been talk of various unions making an
effort to break into the domain of old man Granitch; and, of
course, there was always the I. W. W. trying to break in every-
where with its programme of the "one big union."
Meissner went on to tell how this mysterious stranger had
stated to him that it would be possible to get plenty of money to
back the proposition of a strike in the Empire Shops. The new
plant was just ready to start up, and fresh swarms of men were
coming in; what was wanted was some live fellows to get in with
them and root for an eight hour day and a minimum wage scale
of sixty cents an hour. Men who were willing to do that could
get good money, and plenty of itj if the I^esville "Worker"
would advocate such a policy, there was no reason why it should
not start up the very next week, and publish a big edition and
flood the town. The one essential was that arrangements should
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JIMMIE HIGGINS STRIKES IT RICH 41
be made secretly. Meissner must trust no one save dyed-in-the-
wool "reds," who would be willing to hustle, and not say where
the pay came from. As earnest of his intentions, the stranger
pulled out a roll of bills, and casually drew off half a dozen and
slipped them into Meissner's hands. They were for ten dollars
each — more money than a petty boss at the glass-wprks had ever
got into his hands at one time in all his life !
Meissner exhibited the roll, and Jimmie stared with wide-
open eyes. Here indeed was a new development of the war —
ten doUar bills for Socialist propaganda to be picked up in the
back rooms of saloons! What was this fellow's name? And
where did he hang out? Meissner offered to take Jimmie to
meet him, and so the two bolted their suppers and set out at
top speed.
Jerry Coleman had mentioned several saloons where he
was known, and in one of these they found him, a smooth-
faced, smooth-spoken young fellow whom Jimmie would have
taken for a detective or "spotter" — having had dealings with
such ia his days "on the road." The man wore good clothes,
and his finger-nails were cared for, something which, as we
know, is seldom permitted to workingmen. But he did not put
on airs, and he bade them call him by his first name. He talked
to Jimmie a while, enough to make sure of his man, and then
he peeled off some more bills, and told Jimmie to find more
fellows who could be trusted. It wouldn't do for any one person
to have too much money, for that would excite suspicion; but
if they would go to work and spend that much for dodgers to
be distributed among the munition-workers, and for street-
meetings, and for the proposed radical paper — well, there was
plenty more money in the place wherd this had come from.
Where was that place.? Jimmie asked; and Jerry Coleman
looked wise and winked. Then, after further consideration, he
decided it might be well to tell them, provided they would pledge
themselves not to mention it to others without his permission.
This pledge they gave, and Jerry stated that he was a national
organiser for the American Federation of Labour, which had
resolved to unionise these munition-plants, and to establish the
eight hour day. But it was of the utmost importance that
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42 JIMMIE HIGGINS
the bosses should not get wind of the matter; it must not be
revealed to any one save those whom Coleman saw fit to trust.
He was trusting Jimmie and Meissner, and they might know
that the great labour organisation was behind them, and would
see them through, regardless of expense. Of course, it would
be expected that they would use the money honestly.
"Gee !" exclaimed Jimmie. "What do you take us for ? A
bunch of crooks?"
No, said the other, he was not such a poor judge of character.
And Jimmie remarked griinly that anybody who was looking
for easy money did not go into the business of Socialist agita-
tion. If there was anything a Socialist could boast of, it was
that their workers and elected officials never touched any graft.
Mr. Coleman — ^that is, Jerry — would he handed a receipt for
every dollar they spent.
It chanced that that same night there was a meeting of the
Propaganda Committee of the local, which consisted of half
a dozen of the most active members. Jimmie and Meissner
hurried to this place, with their new-found wealth burning a
hole in their pockets. They informed the committee that they
had been collecting money for the, propaganda fund, and pro-
duced before the eyes of the astounded comrades the sum of one
hundred dollars.
It happened that the chairman of the committee had just
received from the National Office of the party in Chicago a
sample of a new leaflet entitled "Feed America First"; this
leaflet could be had in quantities for a very low price, a dol-
lar or two per thousand; as a result of Jimmie's contribution,
a telegram was sent for ten thousand of the leaflets to be shipped
by express. And then there was a proposition from' the state
office, for Comrade Seaman, author of a book against war, to
speak every night for two weeks in LeesviUe. The local had
voted to turn down this proposition for lack of funds ; but now,
with the new contributions, the propaganda committee felt equal
to the fifty dollars involved. And then there was the idea of
Comrade Gerrity, the organiser, who was conducting street
meetings every Wednesday and Saturday nights ; if he could
have an assistant, at fifteen a week, the soap-boxing could go
on every night. John Meissner here put in — ^he was sure that
contributioiis could be got for that purpose, provided the decision
was made without delay. So the decision was made.
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JIMMIE HIGGIMS STEIKES IT RICH 43
VI
The meeting was adjourned, and then Meissner and Jimmie
went into conference with Gerrity, the organiser, and Schneider,
the brewer, and Comrade Mary Allen, all three of whom hap-
pened to be on the committee entrusted with the affairs of the
"Worker." Jimmie explained that they had met a union or-
ganiser — they could not tell about him, but the committee would
have a chance to meet him — who would put up the balance of'
the money needed, provided that the paper would be willing to
call at once for a strike of the Empire employes. Could that
promise be made ? And Comrade Mary Allen laughed, indicat-
ing her scorn for anybody who could cherish a doubt on that
question ! Comrade Mary was a Quaker ; she loved all mankind
with religious fervour — and it is astonishing how bitter people
can become in the cause of universal love. Her sharp, pale face
flushed, and heir thin lips set, as she answered that the "Worker"
would most surely fight the war-profiteers, so long as she was
on the managing committee!
It was finally decided that Comrade Mary should call on
Jerry Coleman in the morning, and satisfy herself that he really
meant business; if so, she would get the full committee to-
gether on the following evening. The committee had authority
to go ahead, as soon as the necessary fund was made j up, so if
Coleman was all right, there was no reason why the first issue
of the paper should not appear next week. Comrade Jack
Smith, a reporter on the "Herald," the capitalist paper of Lees-
ville, was to resign and become editor of the "Worker," and he
already had his editorials written — had been showing them about
in the local for the past month!
Jimmie and Meissner set out for home, happy in the feeling
that they had accomplished more for Socialism on that one night
than in all the rest of their lives. But then, as they walked,
there came suddenly a clamour of bells on the night air ; a fire !
They knew the signals, and counted the strokes, and made the
discovery that it was in the neighbourhood of their own home !
An engine went by on the gallop, with sparks streaming out
behind, and they broke into a run. Before they had gone a
couple of blocks, they saw a glare in the sky, and their hearts
were in their throats ; poor Meissner panted that he had neglected
to pay his last month's insurance !
4
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44 JIMMIB HIGGINS
But as they ran, in the ever-growing throng of people, they
realised that the fire was too near for their own home; also,
it was a bigger blaze than could have been made by any number
of shacks. And presently there were shouts in the crowd, "It's
the Empire ! The Old Shops !" There came a hook and ladder
truck, rushing by with shrieking siren, and then the fire-chief
in his automobile with a fiercely clanging bell; they turned the
corner, and far down the street before them was the building
in which for four years Jimmie had tended the bolt-making
machine. They saw that one whole end of it was a towering,
leaping, sweeping pillar of flames !
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CHAPTEE IV
JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISEB
TIMMIE HIGGINS regarded with the utmost resentment the
" determination of the war to come to Leesville, in spite of
all his labours to keep it out. Take the most preposterous thing'
you could imagine — ^the most idiotic thing on the face of the
earth — take German spies ! When Jimmie heard people talking
about German spies, he laughed in their faces, he told them
they were a bunch of boobs, they belonged in the nursery; for
Jimmie classed German spies with goblins, witches and sea-
serpents. And here suddenly the bewildered little man found
himself in the midst of a German spy mania, the like of which
he could never have dreamed !
Everybody seemed to take it for granted that the Empire
Machine Shops had been burned by German agents; they just
knew it, and by the time the fire was out they had a hundred
various stories to support their conviction. The fire had leaped
from place to place in a series of explosions ; the watchman, who
had passed through the building only two minutes before, had
rushed back and seen blazing gasoline, and had almost lost his
life in the sweep of the flames. And next morning the Lees-
ville "Herald" was out with letters half a foot high, telling these
tales and insisting that the plant had been full of German agents,
disguised as workingmen.
Before the day was by the police had arrested a dozen per-
fectly harmless German and Austrian labourers; at least thai
was the way it seemed to Jimmie, because of the fact that two
of the men were members of the Socialist local. Somebody told
Mrs. Meissner that all the Germans in Leesville were to be
arrested, and the poor woman was trembling with terror. She
wanted her husband to run away, but Jimmie persuaded them
that this would be the worst possible course ; so Meissner stayed
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46 JIMMIE HIGGINS
in the house, and Jimmie kept his mouth shut for three whole
days — an extraordinary feat for him, and a trial more severe
than being in jail.
He had lost his job— forever, he thought. But in this again
he misjudged the forces which had taken- his life in their grip —
the power of the gold which had come to Leesville by way of
Eussia. The day after the fire he received word to report for
work again ; old man Granitch was so anxious to keep his work-
ers out of the clutches" of the Hubbard Engine Company that
he put them all, skilled and unskilled, at the job of clearing
away the debris of the fire ! And five days later came the first
carloads of new material, brought on motor-trucks, and the
rebuilding of the Empire Shops began. Would you believe it —
some of the machinery which had not been damaged too much
in the fire was fixed up, and at the end of a couple of weeks
was starting up again, covered by a temporary canvas shelter,
and with the walls of the new building rising round it.
That was the kind of thing which made America the marvel
of the world. It had made old man Granitch young again, peo-
ple said ; he worked twenty hours a day in his shirt-sleeves, and
the increase in his profanity was appalling. Even Lacey
Granitch, his dashing son, quitted the bright lights of Broad-
way and came home to help the old man keep his contracts.
The enthusiasm for these contracts became as it were the re-
ligion of Leesville; it spread even to the ranks of labour, so. that
Jimmie found himself like a man in a surf, struggling to keep
his feet against an undertow.
II
The plans for the "Worker" were delayed, for the reason
that when Comrade Mary AUen, the Quaker, went to look for
Jerry Coleman the day after the fire, that dispenser of ten dollar
bills had mysteriously disappeared. It was a week before he
showed up again; and meantime fresh events had taken place,
both in the local and outside. To begin with the latter, as
presumably the more important : an English passenger liner, the
pride of the Atlantic fleet, loaded to the last cabin with Ameri-
can millionaires, was torpedoed without warning by a German
submarine. More than a thousand men, women and children
went down, and the deed sent a shudder of horror through the
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER 47
civilised world. At the meeting of Local Leesville, which hap-
pened to take place the evening afterward, it proved a difficult
matter to get business started.
The members stood about and argued. What could you say
about a government that ordered a crime like that ? What could
you say about a naval officer who would carry out such an order?
Thus Comrade Norwood, the young lawyer ; and Schneider, the
brewer, answered that the German government had done every-
thing that any reasonable man could ask. It had published a
notice in the New York papers, to the effect that the vessel was
subject to attack, and that any one who travelled on her would
do so at his peril. If women and children would ride on muni-
tion-ships
"Munition-ships?" cried Norwood; and then Schneider
pointed to a news-despatch, to the efEeet that the Lusitania, had
had on board a shipment of cartridge-cases.
"A fine lot of munitions !" jeered the, lawyer.
Well, was the reply, what were cartridge-cases for, if not to
kiU Germans? The Germans had been attacked by the whole
world, and they had to defend themselves. When you looked
at Comrade Schneider, you saw a man who felt himself attacked
by the whole world ; his face was red up to the roots of his hair,
and he was ready to defend himself with any weapon he could
get hold of.
Comrade Koeln, a big glass-blower, broke into the discus-
sion. The German government was authority for the statement
that the Lusitania had been armed with guns. And when
Norwood hooted at this, every German in the room was up
in arms. What did he have to disprove it? The word of the
British government! Was not "perfidious Albion" a bye-word!
"The thing that beats me," declared the young lawyer, "is
the way you Germans stand up for the Kaiser now, when before
the war you Couldn't find enough bad things to say about him."
"What beats me," countered Schneider, "is how you Ameri-
cans stand up for King George. Every newspaper in Wall
Street howling for -America to go into the war — ^yust because
some millionaires got killed !"
"You don't seem to realise that the greater number of the
men who lost their lives on that ship were workingmen !"
"Ho! Ho!" hooted Comrade Stankewitz. "Vail Street
loves so the vorkingmen !" .
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48 JIMMIB HIGGINS
Corarade Mary Allen, who loved all men, took up the argu-
ment. If those workingmen had been killed in a mine disaster,
caused by criminal carelessness and greed for profits; if they
had died of some industrial disease which might easily have been ■
prevented; if they -had been burned in a factory without fire-
escapes — nobody in V/all Street would have wanted to go to war.
And, of course, every Socialist considered this was true; every
Socialist saw quite clearly that the enormity of the Lxisita^nia
sinking lay in the fact that it had reached and injured the privi-
leged people, the people who counted, who got their names in
the papers and were not supposed to be inconvenienced, evettby
war. So it was possible for Jimmie Higgins, even though
shocked by what the Germans had done, to be irritated by the
fuss which the Wall Street newspapers made.
Young Emil Forster spoke, and they listened to him, as they
always did. It was a quarrel, he said — and as usual in quarrels,
both sides had their rights and wrongs. You had to balance a
few English and American babies against the millions of Ger-
man babies which the British government intended to starve.
It was British sea-power maintaining itself — and of course con-
trolling most of the channels of publicity. It appealed to what
it called "law" — ^that is to say, the customs it had found con-
venient in the past. British cruisers were able to visit and search
vessels, and to take off their crews; but submarines could not
do that, so what the British clamour about "law" amounted to
was an attempt to keep Germany from using her only weapon.
After all, ask yourself honestly if it was any worse to drown peo-
ple quickly than to starve them slowly.
And then came "Wild Bill." This wrangling over German
and British gave him a pain in the guts. Coiildn't they see,
the! big stiffs, that they were playing the masters' game ? Quar-
relling among themselves, when they ought, to be waking up
the workers, getting ready for the real fight. And wizened-up
little Stankewitz broke in again — that vas vy he hated var, it
divided the vorkers. There vas nothing you could say for
var. But "Wild Bill" smiled his crooked smile. There were
several things you could say. War gave the workers guns, and
taught them to use them; how would it be if some day they
turned these guns about and fought their own battles?
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JIMMIB HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER 49
III
Comrade Gerrity now took the chair and made an effort to
get things started. The minutes of the last meeting were read,
new members were voted on, and then Comrade Mary Allen rose
to report for the "Worker" committee. The fund had been com-
pleted, the first number of the paper was to appear next week,
and it was now up to every member of the local to get up on
his toes and hustle" as never in his life before. Comrade Mary,
with her thin, eager face of a religious zealot, made every one
share her fervour.
All save Lawyer Norwood. Since the retirement of Dr.
Service he was the chief pro-ally trouble-maker, and he now
made a little speech. He had been agreeably surprised to learn
that the money had been raised so quickly; but then certain un-
comfortable doubts having occurred to him, he had made in-
quiries and found there was some mystery about the matter. It
was stated that the new paper was to demand a general strike
in the Empire ; and of course everybody knew there were power-
ful and sinister forces now interested in promoting strikes in
munition-factories.
"Wild Bill" was on his feet in an instant. Had the com-
rade any objection to munition-workers demanding the eight
hour day?
"No," said Norward, "of course not ; but if we are going into
a fight with other people, we surely ought to know who they
are and what their purpose is. I have been informed — there
seems to be a little hesitation in talking about it— that a lot of
money has been put up by one man, and nobody knows who
that man is."
"He's an organiser for the A. F. of L. !" The voice was
Jimmie's. In his excitement the solemn pledge of secrecy was
entirely forgotten !
"Indeed !" said Norward. "What is his name ?"
Nobody answered.
"Has he shown his credentials?" Again silence.
"Of course I don't need to tell men as familiar with union
affairs as the comrades here that every bona-fide organiser for
a union carries credentials. If he does not produce them, it is
at least occasion for writing to the organisation and finding out
about him. Has anybody done that?"
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50 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Again there was silence.
"I don't want to make charges," said Norwood
"Oh, no !" put in "Wild Bill." "You only want to make
insinuations !"
"What I want to do is merely to make sure that the local
knows what it is doing. It is no secret anywhere in Leesville
that money is being spent to cause trouble in the Empire. No
doubt this money has passed through a great many hands since
it left the Kaiser's, but we may be sure that his hands are guid-
ing it to its final end."
And then what an up;roar ! "Shame ! Shame !" cried some ;
and others cried, "Bring your proofs!" The "wild" members
shouted, "Put him out!" They had long wanted to get rid of
Norwood, and this looked to be their chance.
But the young lawyer stood his ground and gave them shot
fot shot. They wanted proofs, did they? Suppose they had
learned of a capitalist conspiracy to wreck the unions in the
city ; and suppose that the Leesville "Herald" had been clamour-
ing for "proof s"^-what would they have thought ?
"In other words," shouted Schneider, "you know it's true,
yust because it's Yermany !"
"I know it's true," said Norwood, "because it would help
Germany to win the war. One doesn't have to have any other
evidence — if a certain thing will help Germany to win the war,
one knows that thing is being done. All you Germans know
that, and what's more, you're proud of it; it's your efi&ciency,
that you boast."
Again there was a cry of "Shame! Shame!" But the cry
came from Comrade Mary, the Quaker lady, and it was evident
that she had expected a chorus, and was disconcerted at being
alone. '
Young Norwood, who knew his Germans, laughed scornfully.
"Just now your government is selling bonds in America, sup-
posed to be for the benefit of the families of the dead and
wounded. Some of those bonds have been taken in this city,
as I happen to know. Does anybody really believe the money
will reach the families of the dead and wounded ?"
This time the Germans answered. "I belief it!" roared
Comrade Koeln. "And I ! And I !" shouted others.
"That money is staying right here in Leesville !" proclaimed
the lawyer. "It is preparing a strike in the Empire!"
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER 51
A dozen men wanted the floor at once. Schneider, the
brewer, got it, for the reason that he could outbellow any one
else. "What does the comrade want?" he demanded. "Is he
not for the eight hour day?"
"Has he got any of old man Granitch's money?" shrilled
"Wild Bill." "Or maybe he doesn't know that Granitch is
spending money to get smart young lawyers to help keep his
munition-slaves at work ?"
IT
Norwood, having thrown the fat into the fire, sat down for
a while and let it blaze. When the Germans taunted him with
being afraid to say what he really meant — that the local should
oppose the demand for the eight hour day — he merely laughed
at them. He had wanted to make them show themselves up, and
he had done it. Not merely were they willing to do the work
of the Kaiser — ^they were willing to take the Kaiser's pay for
doing it !
"Take his pay?" cried "Wild Bill." "I'd take the devil's
pay to carry on Socialist propaganda!"
Old Hermann Forster rose and spoke, in his gentle, senti-
mental voice. If it were true that the Kaiser was paying money
for such ends, he would surely find he had bought very little.
There were Socialists in Germany, one must remember
And then came a shrill laugh. Those tame German Social-
ists! It was Comrade Claudel, a Belgian jeweller, who spoke.
Would any rabbit be afraid of such revolutionists as them ? Eat-
ing out of the Kaiser's hand — ^having their papers distributed
in the trenches for government propagaiida ! Talk to a Belgian
about German Socialists!
So you saw the European national lines splitting Local
LeesvUle in two : on the one side the Germans and the Austrians,
the Russian Jews, the Irish and the religious pacifists; on the
other side two English glass-blowers, a French waiter, and sev-
eral Americans who, because of college-education or other snob-
bish weakness, were suspected of tenderness for John Bull. Be-
tween these extreme factions stood the bulk of the membership,
listening bewildered, trying to grope their way through the
labyrinth.
It was no easy job for these plain fellows, the Jimmie Hig-
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52 JIMMIE HIGGINS
genses. When they tried to think the matter out, they were
armost brought to despair. There were so many sides to the
question — the last fellow you met always had a better argument
than any one you had heard before! You sympathised with
Belgium and France, of course; but could you help hating the
British ruling classes? They were your hereditary enemies —
your school-book enemies, so to speak. And they were the ones
you knew most about; since every American jack-ass that got
rich quick and wanted to set himself up above his fellows would
proceed to get English clothes and English servants and Eng-
lish bad manners. To the average plain American, the word
English stood for privilege, for ruling class culture, the things
established, the things against which he was in rebellion; Ger-
many was the I. W. W. among the nations — ^the fellow who had
never got a chance and was now hitting out for it. Moreover,
the Germans were efficient; they took the trouble to put their
case before you, they cared what you thought about them;
whereas the Englishman, damn him, turned up his snobbish
nose, not caring a whoop what you or anybody might think.
Moreover, in this controversy the force of inertia was on the
German side, and inertia is a powerful force in any organisa-
tion. What the Germans wanted of American Socialists was
simply that they should go on doing what they had been doing
all their lives. And the Socialist machine had been set up
for the purpose of going on, regardless of all the powers on
earth, in the heavens above the earth, or in heir beneath. Ask
Jimmie Higgins to stop demanding higher wages and the eight
hour day ! Wouldn't anybody in his senses know what Jimmie
would answer to that proposition ? Go chase/yourself !
But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that Jimmie was
staggered by the idea that he might be getting into the pay
of the Kaiser. It was true that the traditions of the Socialist
movement were German traditions, but they were German anti-
Government traditions: Jimmie regarded the Kaiser as the
devil incarnate, and the bare idea of doing anything the Kaiser
wanted done was enoiigh to make him stop short. He could
see also what a bad thing it would be for the movement to
have any person believe that it was taking the Kaiser's money.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER 53
Suppose, for example, that a report of this evening's discussion
should reach the "Herald" ! And with the public inflamed to
madness over the Lusitama affair !
After the discussion had proceeded for an hour or so, Nor-
wood made a motion to the effect that the "Worker" committee
should be instructed to investigate thoroughly the sources of
all funds contributed, and to reject any that did not come from
Socialists, or those in sympathy with Socialism. The common-
sense of the meeting asserted itself, and even the Germans voted
for this motion. Sure, let them go ahead and investigate ! The
Socialist movement was clean, it had always been clean, it had
nothing to conceal from anyone.
But then came another controversy. Claudel moved that
Norwood should be made a member of the committee; and
this, of course, was bitterly opposed by the radicals. It v/as
an insult to the integrity of the committee. Then, too, sug-
gested Baggs, an Englishman, perhaps Norwood might really
find out something! The Jimmie Higginses voted down the
motion — not because they feared any disclosures, but because
they felt that a quiet, sensible fellow like Gerrity, their organ-
iser, might be trusted to protect the good faith of the movement,
and wiliout antagonising anybody or making a fuss.
The investigation took place, and the result of it was that
the money which Jerry Coleman had contributed for the
"Worker" was quietly returned to him. But the difference was
at once made up by the Germans in the local, who regarded the
whole thing as a put-up job, an effort to block the agitation for
a strike. These comrades took no stock whatever in the talk
about "German gold" ; but on the other hand they were keenly
on the alert for the influence of Eussian gold, which they Imew
was being openly distributed by old Abel Granitch, And so they
put their hands down into their pockets and dug out their
scanty wages, so that the demand for social justice might be
kept alive in Leesville.
The upshot of the whole episode was that the local rejected
the Kaiser's pay, but went on doing what the Kaiser wanted
without pay. This could hardly be considered a satisfactory
solution, but it was the best that Jimmie Higgins was able
to work out at this time.
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54 JIMMIB HIGGINS
VI
The first issue of the "Worker" appeared, with Jack Smith's
editorial spread over the front page, calling upon the workers
of the Empire to take this occasion to organise and demand
their rights. "Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep,
eight hours for play!" proclaimed Comrade Jack; and the
"Herald" and the "Courier," stung to a frenzy by the appear-
ance of a poacher on their journalistic preserves, answered with
broadsides about "German propaganda." The "Herald" got the
story of what had happened in the local ; also it printed a pic-
ture of "Wild Bill," and an interview with that terror of the
West, who declared that he was for war on the capitalist class
with the aid of any and every ally that came along — even to
the extent of emery powder in ball-bearings and copper nails
driven into fruit trees.
The "Herald" charged that the attitude of the Socialists
toward "tainted wealth" was all. a sham. What had happened
was simply that the German members of the local were getting
German money, and making it "Socialist money" by the simple
device of passing it through their consecrated hands. As this
had been hinted by Norwood in the local, the German comrades
now charged that Norwood had betrayed the movement to the
capitalist press. And so ' came another bitter controversy in
the local. The young lawyer laughed at the charge. Did they
really believe they could take German money in Leesville, and
not have the fact become known ?
"Then you think we are taking German money?" roared
Schneider; and he clamoured furiously for an answer. The
other would not answer directly, but he told them a little parable.
He saw a tree, sending down its roots into the ground, spreading
everywhere, each tiny rootlet constructed for the purpose of
absorbing water. And- on the top of the ground was a man with
a supply of water, which he poured out; he poured and poured
without stint, and the water seeped down toward the rootlets,
and every rootlet was reaching for water, pushing toward the
places where water was likely to be. "And now," said Nor-
wood, "you ask me do I believe that tree has been getting any
of that water ?"
And here, of course, was the basis of a bitter quarrel. The
hot-heads would not listen to subtle distinctions ; they declared
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JIMMIE HIGGINS HELPS THE KAISER 55
that ITorwood was accusing the movement of corruption, he was
making out his anti-war opponents to be villains ! He was pro-
viding the capitalist press with ammunition. For shame! for
; shame! "He's a stool-pigeon!" shrieked "Wild Bill." "Put
him out, the Judas!"
The average member of the local, the perfectly sincere fel-
low like Jimmie Higgins, who was wearing himself out, half
;: starving himself, in the effort to bring enlightenment to his
•r class, listened to these controversies with bewildered distress.
' He saw them as echoes of the terrible national hatreds which
were rending Europe, and he resented having these old world
disputes thrust into American industrial life. Why could he
1: . not go on with his duty of leading the American workers into
the co-operative commonwealth?
Because, answered the Germans, old man Granitch wanted
to keep the American workers as munition-slaves; and to this
idea the overwhelming percentage of the membership agreed.
They were not pacifists, non-resistants ; they were perfectly will-
ing to fight the battles of the working-class ; what they objected
to was having to fight the battles of the master-class. They
wanted to go on, as they had always gone, opposing the master-
class and paying no heed to talk about German agents. Jimmie
Higgins believed — and in this belief he was perfectly correct —
that even had there been no German agents, the capitalist papers
of Leesville would have invented them, as a means of discredit-
ing the agitators in this crisis. Jimmie Higgins had lived all his
life in a country in which his masters starved and oppressed him,
and when he tried to help himself, met him with every weapon
of treachery and slander. So Jimmie had made up his mind
that one capitalist country was the same as another capitalist
country, and that he would not be frightened into submission
f by tales about goblins and witches and sea-serpents and German
spies.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL
■p'VEEY evening now the party held its "soap-box" meetings
•'--' on a corner jnst ofE Main Street. Jimmie, having volun-
teered as one of the assistants, would bolt his supper in the
evening and hurry off to the spot. He was not one of the
speakers, of course — he would have been terrified at the idea
of making a speech; but he was one of those whose labours
made the speaking possible, and who reaped the harvest for
the movement.
The apparatus of the meeting was kept in the shop of a
friendly carpenter nearby. The carpenter had made a "soap-
box" that was a wonder — a platform mounted upon four slender
legs, detachable, so that one man could carry the whole business
and set it up. Thus the speaker was lifted a couple of feet
above the heads of the crowd, and provided with a hand-rail upon
which he might lean, and even pound, if he did not pound too
hard. A kerosene torch burned some distance from his head,
illuminating his features, and it was Jimmie's business to see that
this torch was properly cleaned and filled, and to hold it erect on
a pole part of the time. The rest of thfe time he peddled litera-
ture among the crowd — copies of the Leesville "Worker," and
five and ten cent pamphlets supplied by the National OflBce.
He would come home at night, worn out from these labours
after his daily toil; he would fall asleep at Lizzie's side, and have
to be routed out by her when the alarm-clock went off next
morning. She would get him a cup of hot coffee, and after he
had drunk this, he would be himself again, and would chatter
about the adventures of the night before. There was always
something happening, a fellow starting a controversy, a drunken
man, or perhaps a couple of thugs in the pay of old man Gran-
itch, trying to break up the meeting.
Lizzie would do her best to show that sympathy with her
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JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL 57
husband's activities which is expected from a dutiful wife.
But all the time there was grief in her soul — ^the eternal grief
of the feminine temperament, which is cautious and conserva-
tive, in conflict with the masculine, which is adventurous and
destructive. Here was Jimmie, earning twice what he had ever
earned before, having a chance to feed his children properly and
to put by a little margin for the first time in his harassed life;
but instead of making the most of the opportunity, he was going
out on the streets every night, doing everything in his power to
destroy the golden occasion vt^hich fate had brought to him!
Like the fellow who climbs a tree to saw off a limb, and sits on
the limb and saws between himself and the tree !
In spite of her best efforts, Lizzie's broad, kindly face would
sometimes become hard with disappointment, . and a big tear
would roll down each of her sturdy cheeks. Jimmie would be
sorry for her, and would patiently try to explain his actions.
Should a man think only of his own wife and children, and for-
get entirely all the other wives and children of the working-
class? That was why the workers had been slaves all through
the ages, because each thought of himself, and never of his
fellows. No, you must think of your class ! You must act as
a class — on the alert to seize every advantage, to teach solidarity
and stimulate class-conseiousne'ss ! Jimmie would use these
long words, which he had heard at meetings; but then, seeing
that Lizzie did not understand them, he would go back and say
it over again in words of one syllable. They had old man
Granitch in a hole just now, and they must teach him a lesson,
and at the same time teach the workers their power. Lizzie
would sigh, and shake her head; for to her, old man Granitch
was not a human being, but a natural phenomenon, like winter,
or hunger. He, or some other like him, had been the master
of her fathers for generations untold, and to try to break or
even to limit his power was like commanding the tide or the
sun.
II
Events moved quickly to their culmination, justifying the
worst of Lizzie's fears. The shops were seething with discon-
tent, and agitators seemed fairly to spring out of the ground;
some of them paid by Jerry Coleman, no dojibt, others taking
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58 , JIMMIB HIGGINS
their pay in the form of gratification of those grudges with
which the profit-system had filled their hearts. Noon-meetings
would start up, quite spontaneously, without any prearrange-
ment ; and presently Jimmie learned that men were going about
taking the names of all who would agree to strike.
The matter was brought to a head by the Empire managers,
who, of course, were kept informed by their spies. They dis-
charged more than a score of the trouble-makers ; and when this
news spread at noon-time, the whole place burst into a flame of
wrath. "Strike ! strike !" was the cry. Jimmie was one of many
who started a procession through the yards, shouting, singing,
hurling menaces at the bossps, challenging all who proposed
to return to work. Less than one-tenth of the working force
made any attempt to do so, and for that afternoon the plant of
the Empire Machine Shops, which was supposed to be turning
out shell-casings for the Eussian government, was turning out
labour-imion. Socialist, and I. W. W. oratory.
Jimmie Higgins was beside himself with excitement. He
danced about and waved his cap, he shouted himself hoarse, he
almost yielded to the impulse to jump upon a pile of lumber
and make a speech himself. Presently came Comrades Gerrity
and Mary Allen, who had got wind of the trouble, and had
loaded a whole edition of the "Worker" into a Pord ; so Jimmie
turned newsboy, selling these papers, hundreds of them, until
his pockets were bursting with the weight of pennies and
nickels. And then he was pressed into service running errands
for those who were arranging to organise the workers; he car-
ried bundles of membership-cards and application-blanks, fol-
lowing a man with a bull voice and a megaphone, who shouted
in several languages the location of union headquarters, and the
halls where various foreign language meetings would be held
that evening. Evidently some one had foreseen the breaking of
this trouble, and had been at pains to plan ahead.
Late in the afternoon Jimmie was witness of an exciting
incident. In one of the shops a number of the men had per-
sisted in returning to work, and an immense throng of strikers
had gathered to wait for them. They were afraid to come out,
but stayed in the building afteir the quitting-whistle, while
those outside jeered and hooted, and the bosses telephoned fran-
tically for aid. The greater part of the Leesville police-force
was on hand, and in addition, the company had its own guards
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JIMMIB HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL 59
and private detectives. But they were needed all over the place.
You saw them at the various entrances, menacing, but not quite
so sure of themselves as usual; their hands had a tendency to
slip back to the bulge on their right hips.
Jimmie and another feUow had got themselves an empty
box and were standing on it, leaning against the wall of the
building and shouting "Ya! Ya!" at every "scab" head that
showed itself. They saw an automobile come in at the gate, its
horn honking savagely, causing the crowd to leap to one side or
the other. The automobile was packed with men, sitting on
one another's knees, or hanging to the running boards outside.
There came a second car, loaded in the same fashion. They were
guards, sent all the way from Hubbardtown; for of course the
Hubbard Engine Company would help out its rivals in an
emergency such as this. That was the solidarity of capitalism,
concerning which the Socialists never wearied of preaching.
The men leaped from the cars, and spread themselves fan-
wise in front of the door. They had nightsticks in their hands,
and grim resolution in their faces; they cried, "Stand backf
Stand back!" The crowd hooted, but gave slightly, and a few
minutes later the doors of the building opened, and the first of
the timid workers emerged. There was a howl, and then from
somewhere in the throng a stone was thrown. "Arrest that man !"
shouted a voice, and Jimmie's attention was attracted to the
owner of this voice — a young man who had arrived in the first
automobile, and was now standing up in the seat, from which
position he could dominate the throng. "Arrest that man !" he
shouted again, pointing his finger ; and three of the guards leaped
into the crowd at the spot indicated. The man who had thrown
the missile started to run, but he could not go fast in the crowd,
and in a moment, as it seemed, the guards had him by the
collar. He tried to jerk away, and they struck him over the
head, and laid about them to keep the rest of the throng at bay.
"Take him inside!" the young man in the car kept shouting.
And one of the guards twisted his hand in the collar of the
wretched stone-thrower, until he grew purple in the face, and so
half dragged and half ran him into the building.
Ill
The young man in the car turned toward the crowd which
was blocking the way to the exit. "Get those men out of the
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60 JIMMIE HIGGINS
way !'* he yelled to the guards. "Driye them along — God damn
them, they've got no business in here." And so on, with a
string of dynamic profanity, which stung both guards and
policemen into action, and made them ply their clubs upon
the crowd.
"Do you know who that is ?" asked Jimmie's companion on
the box. "That's Lacey Granitch."
Jimmie started, experiencing a thriU to the soles of his
ragged shoes. Lacey Granitch ! In the four years that the little
machinist had worked for the Empire, he had never caught a
glimpse of the young lord of Leesville — something which may
easily be believed, for the young lord considered Leesville "a
hole of a town," and honoured it with his presence only once or
twice a year. But his spirit brooded over it ; he was to Leesville
a mythological figure, either of wonder and awe, or of horror,
according to the temperament of the contemplator. One day
"Wild Bill" had arisen in the local, and held aloft a page from
the "magazine supplement" of one of the metropolitan "yellows."
There was an account of how Lacey Granitch had broken the
hearts of seven chorus-girls by running away with an eighth.
He fairly "ate 'em alive," according to the account; in order
to give an idea of the atmosphere in which the young hero
abode, the whirl of delight which was his life, the artist of the
Sunday supplement had woven round the boirder of the page
a maze of feminine ankles and calves in a delirium of lingerie ;
while at the top was a supper-table with champagne-corks pop-
ping, and a lady clad in inadequate veils dancing amid the
dishes.
This had happened while the local was in the midst of an
acrimonious controversy over "Section Six." Should the Social-
ist party bar from its membership those who advocated sabotage,
violence and crime? Young Norwood was pleading for orderly
methods of social reconstruction; and here stood "Wild Bill,"
ripping to shreds the reputation of the young plutocrat of the
Empire Shops. "That's what you geezers are sweating for!
That's why you've got to be good, and not throw monkey-
wrenches in the machinery — so the seven broken-hearted chorus-
.girls can drown their sorrows in champagne !"
And now here was the hero of all these romantic escapades,
forsaking the white lights of Broadway, and coming home to
.help the old man keep his contracts. He stood in the seat of the
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JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL 61
automobile, glancing this way and that, swiftly, like a hunter
on the alert for dangerous game. His dark eyes roamed here
and there, his proud face was pale with anger, his tall, perfectly
groomed figure was eloquent of mastership, of command. He
was imperious as a young Caesar, terrible in his vengeance; and
poor Jimmie, watching him, was torn between two contradic-
tory emotions. He hated him — hated him with a deadly and
abiding hatred. But also he admired him, marvelled at him,
cringed before him. Lacey was a wanton, a cursing tyrant, a
brutal snob; but also he was the master, the conqueror, the
proud, free, rich young aristocrat, for whom all the rest of
humanity existed. And Jimmie Higgins was a poor little worm
of a proletarian, with nothing but his labour-power to sell, try-
ing by sheer force of his will to lift himself out of his slave-
psychology !
There is an old adage that "a cat may look at a king." But
this can only have been meant to apply to house-cats, cats of the
palace, accustomed to the etiquette of courts; it cannot have
been meant for proletarian cats of the gutter, the Jimmie
Higgins variety of red revolutionary yowlers. Jimmie and his
companion stood on their perch, shouting "Ya ! Ya !" and sud-
denly the crowd melted away in front of them, exposing them
to the angry finger of the young master. "Get along now ! Beat
it ! Quick !" And Jimmie, poor little ragged, stunted Jimmie,
with bad teeth and toil-deformed hands, wilted before this blast
of aristocratic wrath, and made haste to hide himself in the
throng. But it was with blazing soul that he went; every
instant he imagined himself turning back, defying the angry
finger, shouting down the imperious voice, even smashing it back
into the throat from which it came I
IV
Jimmie did not even stop for supper. The greater part ol
the night he worked at helping to organise the strikers, and
all next day he spent arranging Socialist meetings. He
worked like a man possessed, lifted above the limitations of
the flesh. For everywhere that day he carried with him the
image of the proud, free, rich young aristocrat, with his dark
eyes roaming swiftly, his tall, perfectly groomed figure eloquent
of mastership, his voice ringing with challenge. Jimmie was
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62 JIMMIE HIGGINS
for the time utterly possessed by hatred ; and he saw about him
thousands of others sharing the mood and shouting it aloud.
Every speaker who could be found was turned loose to talk
till he was hoarse, and in the evening there were to be half a
dozen sti;eet meetings. That was always the way when there
were strikes ; then the working-man had time to listen — and also
the desire!
So came the final crisis, when the little machinist had to show
the stuff he was made of. He was holding aloft the torch at
the regular meeting-place on the corner of Main and Third
Streets, and Comrade Gerfity was explaining the strike and the
ballot as two edges of the sword of labour, when four policemen
came suddenly round the corner and pushed their way through
the crowd. "You'll have to stop this !" declared one.
"Stop?" cried Gerrity. "What do you mean?"
"There's to be no more street-speaking during the strike."
"Who says so?"
"Orders from the Chief." ■
"But we've got a permit." ♦.■•'S^,
"All permits revoked. Cut it out."
"But this is an outrage !" I
"We don't want any argument, young man " '
"But we're within our rights here."
"Forget it, young feller !"
Gerrity turned swiftly to the throng.
"Fellow-citizens," he cried, "we are here in the exercise of
our rights as American citizens! We are conducting a peace-
able and orderly political meeting, and we know our rights and
propose to maintain them. We "
"Come down off that box, young feller!" commanded the
officer; and the crowd hooted and booed.
"Fellow-citizens !" began Gerrity again ; but that was as far
as he got, for the policeman seized him by the arm and pulled ;
and Gerrity knew the ways of American policemen too well to
resist. He came down — but stiU talking. "Fellow-citizens "
"Are you goin' to shut up?" demanded the other, and as
Gerrity still went on oyating, he announced: "You are vmder
arrest."
There were half a dozen Socialists with the party, and this
was a challenge to the self-respect of every one of them. In an
instant Comrade Mabel Smith- had leaped onto the stand. "Fel-
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JIMMIB HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL 63-
low-workers!" she cried. "Is this America, or is it Eussia?"
"That'll do, lady," said the policeman, as considerately as he
dared; for Comrade Mabel wore a big picture-hat, and many
other signs of youth and beauty.
"I have a right to speak here, and I mean to speak," she de-
clared.
"We don't want to have to arrest you, lady "
"You either have to arrest me, or else allow me to speak."
"I'm sorry, lady, but it's orders. You are arrested."
Then came the turn- of Comrade Stankewitz. "Vorkingmen,
it is for the rights of the vorkers ve are here." And so they
jerked him ofE.
And then "Wild Bill." This hundred per cent, middle-of-
the-road proletarian had been hanging on the outskirts of the
meeting, having been forbidden by the local to take part in the
speaking, because of the intemperate nature of his utterances;
hut now, of course, all rules went down, and Bill leaped onto
the shaking platform. "Are we slaves?" he yelled. "Are we
dogs ?" And it would seem that the police thought so, for they
yanked him o£E the platform, and one of them seized him by
the wrist and twisted so that his oration ended in a shriek of
pain.
Then came Johnny Edge, a shy youth with an armful of
literature, which he hung onto in spite of police violence; and
then — then there was one more !
Poor Jimmie ! He did not in the least want to get arrested,
and he was terrified at the idea of making even so short a speech
as was here the order of the night. But of course, his honour
was at stake, there was no way out. He handed his torch to a
by-stander, and mounted the scaffold. "Is this a free coun-
try ?" he cried. "Do we have free speech ?" And Jimmie's first
effort at oratory ended in a jerk at his coat-tail, which all but
upset the frail platform upon which he stood.
There were four policemen, with six prisoners, and a throng
about them howling with indignation, perhaps ready to become
violent — ^who could say? The guardians of order had been
prepared, however. One of them stepped to the corner and blew
his whistle, and a minute later came the shriek of a siren, and
round the corner came swinging the city's big patrol-wagon, the
"Black Maria." The crowd gave way, and one by one the
prisoners were thrust in. One of them, "Wild Bill," feeling
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64 JIMMIB HIGGINS
himself for a moment released from the grip of his captors,
raised his voice, shouting through the wire grating of the
wagon : "I denounce this outrage ! I am a free American "
And suddenly Jimmie, who was next in the wagon, felt himself
flimg to one side, and a policeman leaped' by him, and planted
his fist with terrific violence full in the orator's mouth. "Wild
Bill" went down like a bullock under the slaughter-man's axe,
and the patrol-wagon started up, the cry of its siren drowning
the protests of the crowd.
Poor Bill ! He lay across the seat, and Jimmie, who had to
sit next to him, caught him in his arms and held him. He was
quivering, with awful motions like a spasm. He made no
sound, and Jimmie was terrified, thinking that he was dying.
Before long Jimmie felt a hot wetness stealing over his hands,
first slimy, then turning sticky. He had to Sit there, almost
fainting with horror; he dared not say anything, for maybe
the policeman would strike him also. He sat, clutching in his
arms the shaking body, and whispering under his breath, "Poor
Bill! Poor Bill!"
They came to the station-house, and Bill was carried out and
laid on a bench, and the others were stood up before the desk
and had their pedigrees taken. Gerrity demanded indignantly
to be allowed to telephone, and this demand was granted. He
routed lawyer Norwood from a party, and set him to finding
bail; and meantime the prisoners were led to cells.
They had been there only a couple of minutes when there
came fioating through the row of steel cages the voice of a
woman singing. It was Comrade Mabel Smith, in that clear
sweet voice they had so often listened to on "social evenings"
in the local. She was singing the Internationale :
Arise, ye prisoners of Btarvation,
Arise, ye wretched of the earth I
The sound thrilled them to the very bones, and they joined
in the chorus with a shout. Then, of course, came the jailer:
"Shut up !" And then again : "Shut up !" And then a third
time: "Will ye shut up?" And then came a bucket of water,
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JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL 65
hurled through the cell bars. It hit Jimmie squarely in the
mouth, and in the words of the poet, "the subsequent proceedings
interested him no more !"
About midnight came Lawyer Norwood and Dr. Service.
Both of these men had protested against ^he street-speaking at
this time; but of course, when it came to comrades in trouble,
they could not resist the appeal to their sympathies. Such is
the difficulty of entirely respectable and decorous "parlour"
Socialists, in their dealings with the wayward children of the
movement, the "impossibilists" and "direct actionists" and other
sowers of proletarian wild oats. Dr. Service produced a wad
of bills and bailed out all the prisoners, and delivered himself
of impressive indignation to the police-sergeant, while waiting
for an ambulance to carry "Wild Bill" to the hospital. Jimmie
Higgins, who had always hitherto shouted with the "wild" ones,
realised suddenly how pleasant it is to have a friend who wears
black broadcloth, and carries himself like the drum-major of
a band, and is reputed to be worth a couple of hundred thousand
dollars.
Jimmie went home; and there was Lizzie, pacing the floor
and wringing her hands in anxiety— for there had been no way
to get word to her what had happened. She flung herself into
his arms, and then recoiled in fright when she discovered that
he was wet. He told her the story ; and would you believe it —
Lizzie, being a woman, and only in the A-B-C stage of revolu-
tionary education, actually did not know that it was a glorious
and heroic adventure to be arrested ! She thought it a disgrace,
and tried to persuade him to keep the dreadful secret from the
neighbourhood 1 And when she found that he was not through
yet, but had to go to court in the morning and be tried, she
wept copiously, and woke up Jimmie Junior, and started him to
bawling. She was only to be pacifled when Jimmie Senior
agreed to take ofE his wet clothes at once, and drink a cup or
two of boiling hot tea, and let himself be covered up with blan-
kets, so that he might not die of pneumonia before he could
get to court.
Next morning there was a crowded court-room and a stern
and solemn judge frowning over his spectacles, and Lawyer
Norwood making an impassioned defence of the fundamental
American right of free speech. It was so very thrilling that
Jimmie could hardly be kept from applauding his own lawyer I
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66 JIMMIE HIGGINS
And then Comrade Dr. Service arose, and in his most impres-
sive voice gave the professional information that "Wild Bill's"
nose had been broken, and three of his front teeth knocked out,
and that he was in the hospital and unable to come to court;
and aU the other prisoners were called upon to testify what
"Wild Bill" had done to bring this fate upon him. The police-
man who had struck the blow testified that the prisoner had
resisted arrest; a second policeman testified, "I seen the prisoner
hit him first, your Honour," — which caused Comrade Mabel
Smith to cry out, "Oh, the ungrammatical prevaricator!"
The upshot of the trial was that each of the defendants
was fined ten dollars. Comrade Gerrity led off with an indig-
nant refusal to pay the fine; the rest of them followed suit —
even Comrade Mabel ! This caused evident distress of mind to
the judge, for Comrade Mabel with her indignant pink cheeks
and her big picture-hat looked more than ever the lady, and it
is a fact known even to judges that American jails have not
been constructed for ladies. The matter was settled by Lawyer
Norwood paying her fine, in spite of her protests, and her
demand to be sent to jail.
VI
The five men were led away, over the "Bridge of Sighs," as
it was called, to the city jail, where they had their pedigrees
taken again, and their pictures and their finger-prints — ^which
for the first time impressed upon their minds the fact that they
were dangerous criminals. Their clothes were taken away, and
shirts and trousers given them, whose faded blue colour seemed
to have been impregnated with the misery of scores of previous
wearers. They were led through steel-barred doors, and along
dark, steel-barred passages to one of the "tanks." A "tank,"
you discovered, was one floor of this four-storied packing box;
on each side of it were a row of a dozen barred cells, each with
four bunks, so that the total maximum population which might
be crowded into the central space of the "tank" was ninety-six;
however, this only happened on Monday mornings, when the
"drunks" had all been brought in, and before the courts had had
time to sort them out.
After you had lain down on your bunk for a few minutes, or
had leaned against the wall of the "tank," you felt an annoy-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS GOES TO JAIL 67
ing stinging sensation somewhere on you. You began to rub
and scratch; before long you would be rubbing and scratching
in a dozen different places, and then you would observe your
neighbour watching you with a grin. "Seam-squirrels?" he
would say ; and he would bid you take off your coat, and engage
in the popular hunting game of the institution. Jimmie re-
membered having heard a speaker refer to the city jail as the
"Leesville Louse-ranch" ; he had thought that a good joke at the
time, but now it seemed otherwise to him.
It was splendid to stand up in court and to take your stand
as a martyr ; but now Jimmie discovered, as many an unfortunate
has discovered before him, that being a martyr is not the sport
it is cracked up to be. There were no heroics now, no singing.
If you even so much as hummed, they took you out and shut
you up in a dark hole called the "cooler" ! Nor could you read,
for there was no light in your cell, and perpetual twilight in the
central gathering place of the "tank." Apparently the only
things the authorities of Leesville wished you to do were to
hunt "seam-squirrels," to smoke cigarettes, to "shoot craps," and
to make the acquaintance of a variety of interesting young
criminals, so that when you were ready to resume your outside
life you might decide whether you wanted to be a hold-up man,
a safe-cracker, a forger, or a second-story operator.
Jimmie Higgins, of course, brought a different psychology
from that of the average jail-inmate. Jimmie could do his
kind of work just as well in jail as anywhere else ; and barring
the torment of vermin, the diet of bread and thin coffee and ill-
smelling greasy soup, and the worry about his helpless family
outside, he really had a happy time — making the acquaintance
of hoboes and pickpockets, and explaining to them the revolu-
tionary philosophy. A man who went in to remedy social in-
justice all by himself could never get very far. It was only when
he realised himself as a member of a class, and stood as a class
and acted as a class, that he could accomplish a permanent result.
Some of the workers had discovered this, and had set out to edu-
cate their fellows. They brought the wondrous message, even to
those in jail; holding out to them the vision of a world made
over in justice and kindness, the co-operative commonwealth
of labour, in which every man should get what he produced, and
no man could exploit his fellows.
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68 JIMMIE HIGGINS
VII
Three days passed, and then one afternoon Jimmie was
summoned to see a visitor. He could guess who the visitor was,
and he went with his heart in his throat, and looked through the
dark mesh of wire, and saw Lizzie standing — stout, motherly
Lizzie, now very pale, and breathing hard, and with tears running
in little streamlets down her cheeks. Poor Lizzie, with her
three babies at home, and her plain, ordinary, non-revolutionary
psychology, which made going to jail a humiliation instead of a
test of manhood, a badge of distinction ! Jimmie felt a clutch
in his own throat, and an impulse to tear down the beastly wire
mesh and clasp the dear motherly soul in his arms. But all he
could do was to screw his face into a dubious smile. Sure, he
was having the time of his life iu this jail ! He wouldn't have
missed it for anything ! He had made a Socialist out of "Dead-
eye Mike," and had got Pete Curley, a fancy "con" man, to
promise to read "War, What For ?"
There was only one thing which had been troubling him, and
that was, how his family was making out. They had had prac-
tically nothing in the house, he knew, and poor Meissner could
not feed four extra mouths. But Lizzie, also screwing her face
into a smile, assured him that everything was all right at home,
there was no need to worry. In the first place, Comrade Dr.
Service had sent her a piece of paper with his name written on
it ; it appeared that this was called a check, and the groceryman
had exchanged it for a five dollar bill. And in the next place
there was a domestic secret which Lizzie had to confide — she had
put by some money, without letting Jimmie know it.
"But how ?" cried Jimmie, in wonder — ^f or he had thought
he knew all about his household and its expenses.
So Lizzie explained the trick she had played. Jimmie had
committed an extravagance, treating her to a new dress out of
his increased earnings : a gorgeous contrivance of several colours,
looking like silk, even if it wasn't. Lizzie had stated that the
cost was fifteen dollars, and he, the dub, had believed it ! The
truth was she had bought the dress in a second-hand shop for
three dollars, and had put twelve dollars away for the time of
the strike !
And Jimmie went back to his "tank," shaking his head and
philosophising : "Gee ! Can you beat these women Y"
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CHAPTER VII
JIMMIK HIG6INS DALLIES WITH CUEID
TPHE strike was over when Jimmie came out of jail; it had
■*■ been settled by the double-barrelled device of raising the
wages of the men and putting their leaders behind bars. Jimmie
presented himself at his old place of working, and the boss told
him to go to hell; so Jimmie went to Hubbardtown, and stood
in the long line of men waiting at the gate of the engine com-
pany. Jimmie knew about black-lists, so when his time came
to be questioned, he said his name was Joe Aronsky, and he had
last worked in a machine-shop in Pittsburg; he had come to
Hubbardtown because he had heard of high pay and good treat-
ment. While he was answering these questions, he noticed a
man sitting in the corner of the room studying his face, and
he saw the boss turn and glance in that direction. The man
shook his head, and the boss said : "Nothin' doin'." So Jimmie
understood that the Hubbard Engine Company was taking
measures to keep its shops clear of the agitators from Leesville.
He spent a couple of days trying other places in his home
town, but aU in vain — ^they had him spotted. At the brewery
they were slower than elsewhere — they took him on for two
hours. Then they found out his record, and "fired" him; and
Jimmie "kidded" the boss, saying that they were too late — ^he
had already given a Socialist leaflet to every man in the room !
On JefEerson Street, an out of the way part of the town, was
a bicycle-shop kept by an old German named Kumme. One of
the comrades told Jimmie that he wanted a helper, and Jimmie
went there and got a job at two dollars a day. That was poor
pay at present prices, but Jimmie liked the place, because his
boss was a near-Socialist, a pacifist — for all countries except
Germany. He got round it by saying that every nation had
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70 JIMMIE HIGGINS
a right to defend itself; and Germany was the nation which
had been attacked in this war. A good part of the energies of
the old man went into proving this to his customers; if there
were any customers who did not like it, they could go elsewhere.
Those who came were largely Germans, and so Jimmie was
kept fully supplied with arguments against the munitions-indus-
try, which they called a trade in murder, and in favour of the
programme of "Feed America First." Among those who fre-
quented the place was Jerry Coleman, who was still on the job,
and as well suppHed with ten dollar bills as ever. He had now
revealed himself as an organiser for a new propaganda society,
called "Labour's National Peace Council." Inasmuch as Labour
and Peace were the phrases upon which Jimmie lived, he saw no
reason why he should not back this organisation. Coleman
assured Jimmie he hated the Kaiser, but that the German "peo-
ple" must be defended. So Jimmie became, without having the
least idea of it, one of the agencies whereby the Kaiser was sub-
sidising social discontent in America.
But Jimmie was more careful now in his agitations. He
had brought such distress into his home by his jail sentence,
that he had been forced to make promises to Lizzie. Her
anxiety for her children could no longer be kept to herself;
and this caused a certain amount of friction between them, and
sent Jimmie out grumbling at his lot in life. What was the
use of trying to educate a woman, who could see no farther than
her own kitchen-stove ? When you wanted to be a world-saviour,
to walk tip-toe on the misty mountain-tops of heroism, she
dragged you down and chained you to the commonplace, taking
all the zest and fervour out of your soul! The memories of
"seam-squirrels" and of thin and ill-smelling and greasy soup
had slipped somewhat into the background of Jimmie's mind,
and he lived again the sublime hour when he had confronted the
court and stood for the fundamental rights of an American
citizen. He wanted to have that act of daring appreciated at
its true value. Poor, blind, home-keeping Lizzie, who could not
f ufil these deeper needs of her husband's soul !
Jimmie had been, so far in his married life, as well domes-
ticated as could be expected of a proletarian propagandist. He
had yearned to own a home of his own, and meantime had
manifested his repressed wish by getting a big packing-box and
some broken shingles, and building a model play-house for
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JIMMIB HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID 71
Jimmie Junior in the back yard. He had even found time on
his tired and crowded Sundays to start a garden in mid-summer,
the season when the local was least active. But now, of course,
the war had come to obsess his mind, driving him to terror for
the future of humanity, tempting him to martyrdoms and do-
mestic irritations.
II
It was at this critical period in Jimmie's life that there
appeared in Leesville a vivid young person by the name of
Evelyn Baskerville. Evelyn was no tired kitchen slave — with
her fluffy brown hair, her pert little dimples, her trim figure,
her jaunty hat with a turkey-feather stuck on one side of her
head. Evelyn was a stenographer, and proclaimed herself an
advanced feminist; at her first visit she set the local upside down.
It happened to be "social evening," when all the men smoked,
and tMs "free" young thing took a cigarette from her escort
and pufEed it all over the place. This, of course, would not
have made a stir in great centres of culture such as London
and Greenwich Village; but in Leesville it was the first time
that the equality of women had been interpreted to mean that
the women should adopt the vices of the men.
Then Evelyn had produced from her handbag some leaflets
on Birth Control; and proposed that the local should imdertake
their distribution. This was a new subject in Leesville, and
while the members supposed it was all right, they found it
embarrassing to have the matter explained too fully in open
meeting. Evelyn wanted a "birth strike," as the surest means
of ending the war; she wanted the "Worker" to take up this
programme, and did not conceal her contempt for reactionaries
in the movement who still wanted to pretend that babies were
brought by storks. The delicate subject was finally "tabled,"
and when the meeting adjourned and the members walked home,
every one was talking about Miss Baskerville — ^the men mostly
talking with the men, and the women with the women.
Pretty soon it became evident that the vivid and dashing
young person was setting her cap for Comrade Gerrity, the
organiser. As Gerrity was an eligible young bachelor, that was
all right. But then, a little later, it began to be suspected that
she had designs upon Comrade Claudel, the Belgian jeweller.
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72 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Doubtless she had a right to make her choice between them ; but
some of the women were of the opinion that she took too long
to choose; and finally one or two malicious ones began to say
that she had no intention of choosing — she wanted both.
And then fell a thunderbolt into Jimmie's life. It was just
after his arrest, when fame still climg to him; and after the
meeting Comrade BaskerviUe came up and engaged him in con-
versation. How did it feel to be a jailbird? When he told
her that it felt fine, she bade him not be too proud — she had
served thirty days for picketing in a shirt-waist strike ! As she
looked at him, her pretty brown eyes sparkled with mischief,
and her wicked little dimples lost no curtain-calls. Poor, hum-
ble Jimmie was stirred to his shoe-tips, for he had never before
received the attentions of such a fascinating creature — imless
perchance it had been to sell her a newspaper, or to beg the price
of a sandwich in his hobo days. Here was one of the wonderful
things about the Socialist movement, that it broke down the
barriers of class, and gave you exciting glimpses of higher worlds
of culture and charm !
Comrade Baskerville continued to flash her dimples and her
wit at Jimmie, despite the fact that Comrade Gerrity and Com-
rade Claudel and several other moths were hovering about the
candle-fiame, and all the women in the local watching out of
the corners of their eyes. Finally, to Jimmie's unutterable
consternation, the vivid young goddess of Liberty inquired,
"Wouldn't you like to walk home with me. Comrade Higgins?"
He stammered, 'TTes" ; and they went out, the young goddess
plying him with questions about conditions in the jail, and
displaying' most convincing erudition on the subject of the eco-
nomic aspects of criminology — ^at the same time seeming entirely
oblivious to the hoverings of the other moths, and the disgust of
the tmemancipated ladies of Local Leesville.
Ill
They walked down the street together, and first Comrade
Baskerville shivered with horror at the "seam-squirrels," and
then exclaimed with delight over the conversion of "Dead-eye
Mike" to Socialism, and then made merry over the singing of the
Internationale in the police-station. Had she discovered a
"character" in this seemingly insignificant little machinist? At
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID 73
any rate, she plied him. with questions about his past life and
his ideas. When he told her of his starved and neglected child-
hood, she murmured sympathetically, and it ■ seemed to the
fascinated Jimmie that here was a woman who understood in-
stinctively all the cravings of his soul. She laid her hand on
his arm, and it was as if an angel were touching him — strange
little thrills ran like currents of electricity all over him.
Yes, Comrade Baskerville could appreciate his sufferings,
because she had suffered too. She had had a step-mother, and
had run away from home at an early age, and fought her own
way. That was why she stood so firmly for woman's emancipa-
tion — she knew the slavery of her sex through bitter experience.
There were many men who believed in sex-equality as a matter
of words, but had no real conception of it in action; as for
the women — well, you might see right here in the local the
most narrow, bourgeois ideas dominating their minds. Jimmie
did not know what, ideas Comrade Baskerville meant, but he
knew that her voice was musical and full of quick changes that
made him shiver.
He was supposed to be taking her home ; but he had no idea
where she lived, and apparently she had no idea either, for they
just wandered on and on, talking about all the wonderful new
ideas that were stirring the minds of men and women. Did
Comrade Higgins believe in trial marriages? Comrade Hig-
gins had never heard of this wild idea before, but he listened,
and bravely concealed his dismay. What about the children?
The eager feminist answered there need not be any children.
Unwanted children were a crime ! She proposed to get the
working-class women together and instruct them in the tech-
nique of these delicate matters; and meantime, lacking the
women, she was willing to explain it to any inwardly embar-
rassed and quaking man who would lend his ear.
Suddenly she stopped and cried, "Where are we?" And
there came a peal of merry laughter, as she discovered they
had gone far astray. They turned and set off in the right
direction, and meantime the lecture on advance feminism con-
tinued. Poor Jimmie was in a panic — ^tumbled this way and
that. He had considered himself a radical, because he believed
in expropriating the expropriators; but these plans for over-
throwing the conventions and disbanding the home — these left
him aghast. And trilled into his ear by a vivid and amazing
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74 JIMMIE HIGGINS
young thing with a soft hand upon his arm and a faint intoxi-
cating perfume all about her ! Why was she telling these things
to him? What did she mean? What? What?
IV
They came to the house where she lived. It was late at
night, and the street was deserted. It was up to Jimmie to say
good night, but somehow he did not know how to say it. Com-
rade Evelyn gave him her hand, and for some reason did not
take it away again. Of course it would not have been polite
for Jimmie to have pushed it away. So he held it, and looked
at the shadowy form before him, and felt his knees shaking.
"Comrade Higgins," said the brave, girlish voice, "we shall be
friends, shall we not?" And of course, Jimmie answered that
they would — always ! And the girlish voice repHed, "I am glad!"
And then suddenly it whispered, "Good night !" and the shadowy
form turned and flitted into the house.
Jimmie walked away with the strangest tumult in his soul.
It was something which the poets had been occupied for cen-
turies in trying to portray, but Jimmie Higgins had no acquain-
tance with the poets, and so it was a brand new thing to him,
he was left to experience the shock of it and to resolve the
problems of it all alone. To be rolled arid tossed about like a
man in a blanket at a college hazing ! To be a prey to bewilder-
ment and fear, hope and longing, despair and rebellion, delicious
excitement, angry self -contempt and tormenting doubt ! Truly
did that poet divine who first conceived the symbol of the
mischievous little god, who steals upon an unsuspecting man
and shoots him through the heart with a sharp and tormenting
arrow !
The worst of it was, Jimmie couldn't tell Lizzie about it.
The first time in four years that he had had a trouble he could
not tell Lizzie! He even felt ashamed, as he came home and
crawled into bed — as if he had done some dreadful wrong to
Lizzie; and yet, he would have been puzzled to tell just what
the wrong was/ or how he could have avoided it. It was not
he who had made the young feminist so delicious and sweet and
frank and amazing. It was not he who had made the little god,
and brewed the poison for the arrow's tip. No, it was some
power greater than himself that had prepared this situation,
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID 75
BQiae power cruel and implacable, which plots against domestic
tranquillity; perhaps it was some hireling of capitalism, which
will not permit a propagandist of social justice to do his work
in peace of soul !
Jimmie tried to hide what was going on; and of course —
poor, n&Tje soul — he had never learned to hide anything in his
life, and now was too late to begin. The next time the local
met, the women were saying that they were disappointed in
Comrade Higgins; they had thought he was really devoted to
the cause, but they saw now he was like all the rest of the men —
his head had been turned by one smile on a pretty face. Instead
of attending to his work, he was following that Baskerville
creature about, gazing at her yearningly, like a moon-calf, mak-
ing a ninny of himself before the whole room. And he with a
wife and three babies at home, waiting for him and thinking he
was hustling for the cause. When the meeting adjourned, and
the Baskerville creature accepted the invitation of Comrade
Gerrity to escort her home, the dismay of Comrade Higgins
was so evident as to be ludicrous to the whole room.
In the interest of common decency it was necessary for the
women of the local to take action on this matter. At least, a
couple of them thought so, and quite independently and without
prearrangement they called on Lizzie next day and told her that
she should come more frequently to meetings, and keep herseK
acquainted with the new ideas of advanced feminism. And so
when Jimmie came home that night, he found his wife dissolved
in tears, and there was a most harrowing scene.
For poor Elizabeth Huszar, pronounced Eleeza Betooser, had
had no chance whatever to familiarise herself with the new ideas
of advanced feminism. Her notions of "free unions" had been
derived from a quite different world, whose ideas were not new,
but on the contrary very, very old, and were "advanced" only
on the road to perdition. She judged Jimmie's behaviour ac-
cording to thoroughly old standards, and she was broken-hearted,
overwhelmed with grief and shame. He was like all the rest
of men — and when she had fondly thought he was different!
He despised her and spit upon her — a woman he had picked up in
a brothel.
6
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76 JIMMIE HI6GINS
Poor Jimmie was stunned. He was conscious of no disre-
spect for Lizzie, it had not occurred to him to think that she
might take the matter that way. But so she had taken it,
beyond doubt, and with intensity that frightened him. He
would not have believed that so many tears could stream from
one woman's eyes — nor that his good, broad-faced, honest wife
could be so abject in her misery. "Oh, I knowed it, I knowed
it all along — it would be that way! I hadn't never ought to
married you — you know I told you so !"
"But, Lizzie!" pleaded the husband. "You're mistaken.
That hadn't nothin' to do with it."
She turned Tipon him wildly, her fingers stuck out as if she
would claw him. "You mean to tell me if you hadn't 'a married
a woman off the street, you'd 'a gone chasin' a fluffy-haired girl?
If you'd 'a had a decent wife, that you knowed had some
rights-
''Lizzie !" he protested, in consternation. "Listen here-
But she was not to be stopped. "Everybody said I was a
fool; but I went an' done it, 'cause you swore you'd never hold
it up to me ! An' I went an' had them children" — Lizzie swept
her arm at the children, as if to wipe them ofE the earth, to which
they had come by a cruel mistake. Jimmie Junior, who was
old enough to know that something serious was happening, and
whose instinct was all against being wiped off the earth, began
to howl wildly; and that set off the little ones — soon they were
all three of them going at the top of their lungs. "Boo-hoo-
hoo !" ,
It was truly a terrible climax to a romance. Jimmie,
almost distracted, seized the hand of his injured spouse. "It'V
all nonsense!" he cried. "What they been tellin' you'? I ain't
done a thing, Lizzie ! I "only walked home with her one night."
But Lizzie answered that one night was plenty enoughs
she knew that from intimate and hateful experience. "And 1
know them fluffy-headed kind that frizzes their hair. What does
she want to walk home at night with married men fer? And'
talkin' about the things she does "
"She don't mean no harm, Lizzie — she's tryin' to help
workin' women. It's what's called birth control — she wants
to teach women "
"If she wants to teacii women, why don't she talk to the
women? Whafs she all the time talkin' to men fer? You
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID 77
think you can tell me tales like that — me, that's been what I
have?" And Lizzie went off into another fit, worse than ever.
VI
Jimmie found that it was with romance as with martyrdom
— ^there was a lot of trouble about it which the romancers did
not mention. He really felt quite dreadful, for he had a deep
regard for this mother of his little ones, and he would not
have made her suffer for anything. And she was right, too,
he had to admit — ^her shots went deep home. "How'd you feel,
if you was to find out I'd been walkin' home with some man ?"
When it was put to him that way, he realised that he would
have felt very badly indeed.
A fiood of old emotions came back to him. He went in
memory with his group of roystering friends to the house of
evil where he had first met Elizabeth Huszar, pronounced
Eleeza Betooser. She had taken him to her room, and instead
of making herself agreeable in the usual way, had burst into
tears. She had been ill-treated, and was wretchedly lonely
and unhappy. Jimmie asked why she did not quit the life,
and she answered that she had tried more than once, but she
could not earn a living wage; and anyhow, because she was
big and handsome, the bosses would never let her alone, iand
what was the difference, if you couldn't keep away from the
men?
They sat on the bed and talked, and Jimmie told her a
little about his life, and she told about hers — a pitiful and
moving story. She had been brought to America as an infant j
her father had been killed in an accident, and her mother
had supported several children by scrub-work. Lizzie had
grown up in a slum of the far east side of New York, and she
could not remember a time when she had not been sexually
preyed upon; lewd little boys had taught her tricks, and men
would buy her with candy or food. And yet there had been
something in her struggling for decency; of her own volition
she had tried to go to school, in spite of her rags; and then,
when she was thirteen, she had answered an advertisement for
work as a nurse-maid. That story had made an especial im-
pression upon Jimmie — it was truly a most pitiful episode.
Her place of employment had beeli a "swell" apartment,
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78 JIMMIE HIGGINS
with a hall-boy and an elevator — the most wonderful place
that Lizzie had ever beheld; it was like living in heaven, and
she had tried so hard to do what she was told, and be worthy
of her beautiful mistress and the lovely baby. But she had
been there only two days when the mistress had discovered
vermin on the baby, and had come to Lizzie and insisted
on examining her head. And of course she had found some-
thing. "Them's only nits!" Lizzie had said; she had never
heard of anybody who did not have "nits" in their hair. But
the beautiful lady had called her a vile creature, and ordered
her to pack up her things and get out of the house at once.
And so Lizzie had had to wait until she became an inmate of a
brothel before anybody took the trouble to teach her how to get
the "nits" out of her hair, and how to bathe, and to clean her
finger-nails and otherwise be physically decent.
Jimmie recalled all that, and he fell on his knees before
his wife, and caught her two hands by main force, and swore
to her that he had not done any wrong; he went on to tell
her exactly what wrong he had done, which was the best way to
convince her that he had not done any worse. He vowed again
and again that he would never, never dally with Cupid again —
he would see Comrade Baskerville at once and tell her it was
"all off."
And so Lizzie looked up through her tears. "No," she
said, "you don't need to see her at all !" '
"What shall I do, then?"
"Just let her alone — don't tell her nothin'. She'll know
it's oS all right."
VII
But when you have a dead romance, you cannot leave it to
rot on the highway; you are driven irresistibly to bury it
decently. In spite of his solemn promises, Jimmie found
himself thinking all the time about Comrade Baskerville, and
how he would act when he met her next time — all the noble
and dignified speeches he would make to her. He must manage
to be alone with her; for of course he could not say such
things with the jealous old hags of the local staring at him.
The best thing, he decided, would" be to tell her the frank and
honest truth ; to tell her about Lizzie, and how good and worthy
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DALLIES WITH CUPID 79
she had been, and how deeply he realised his duty to her.
And then tears would come into Comrade Baskerville's lovely
eyes, and she would tell him that she honoured his high sense
of marital responsibility. They must renounce; but of course
they would be dear and true friends — always, always. Jimmie
was holding her hands, in his fancy, as he said these affecting
words : Always ! Always ! He knew that he would have to let go
of the hands, but he was reluctant to do so, and he had not
quite got to the point of doing it when, walking down Jeffer-
son Street on his way home from work — behold, in front of him
a trim, eager little figure, tripping gaily, with a jaunty hat
with a turkey-feather stuck on one side! Jimmie knew the
figure a block away, and as he saw it coming nearer, his heart
leaped up and hit him in the bottom part of his neck, and all
his beautiful speeches flew helter-skelter out of his head.
She saw him, and the vivid, welcoming smile came upon her
face. She came up to him, and their hands clasped. "Why!"
she cried. **What a pleasant meeting!"
Jimmie gulped twice, and then began, "Comrade Basker-
ville " And then he gulped again, and began, "Comrade
Baskerville "
She stopped him. "I'm not Comrade Baskerville," she de-
clared.
He could not get the meaning of these unexpected words.
"What?" he asked.
"Haven't you heard the news?" she said, and beamed on
him. "I'm Comrade Mrs. Gerrity."
He stared at her, utterly bewildered. "I've been that for
twenty-four whole hours! Congratulate me!"
Little by little the meaning of the words began to dawn
in Jimmie's stupid head. "Comrade Mrs. Gerrity !" he echoed.
"But — but — I thought you didn't believe in marriage."
There came the most bewitching smile, a smile decorated
with two rows of pearly white teeth. "Don't you understand.
Comrade Higgins? No woman believes in marriage — ^until she
meets the right man."
This was much too subtle. Jimmie was still gaping open-
mouthed. "But then, I thought— I thought " he stopped
again; for in truth, he had not known quite what he thought,
and anyway, it seemed futile to try to formulate it now.
But of course, she knew, without his telling her; she knew
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80 JIMMIE HIGGINS
the meaning of his look of dismay, and of his stammering words.
Being a kind little creature, she laid her hand on his arm.
"Comrade Higgins," she said, "don't think I'm too mean!"
"Mean?" he cried. "Why, no! What? How "
"Try to imagine you were a girl, Comrade Higgins. You
can't propose to a man, can you?"
"Why, no— that is "
"That is, not if you want him to accept! You have to
make him do it. And mayhe he's shy, and don't do it, and
you have to put the idea in his head for him. Or maybe he's
not sure he wants you, and you have to make him realise
how very desirable you are ! Maybe you have to scare him,
making him think you're going to run off with somebody else !
Don't you see how i't is with a girl ?"
Jimmie was still badly dazed, but he saw enough to enable
him to stammer, "Yes." And Comrade BaskerviUe — that is.
Comrade Mrs. Gerrity — ^gave him her hand again. "Comrade
Higgins," she said, "you're a dear, sweet fellow, and you won't
be too angry with me, will you? We'll be friends, won't we,
Comrade Higgins?"
And Jimmie clasped the soft, warm hand, and gazed into the
shining brown eyes, and he made a part of the wonderful speech
which he had been planning as he walked. He said : "Always !
A.lways !"
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CHAPTER VIII
JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT
nnHE world struggle continued with constantly increasing
•* ferocity. All summer long the Germans hammered at the
French and British lines; while the British hammered at the
gates of Constantinople, and the Italians at the gates of Trieste.
The Germans sent their giant airships to drop loads of bombs
on London, and their submarines to sink passenger-steamers
and hospital-ships. Each fresh outrage against international
law became the occasion of more letters of protest from the
United States, and of more controversies in the newspapers, and
in Congress, and in Kumme's bicycle-shop on Jefferson Street,
Leesville.
In this last place, to be sure, the discussions were rather
one-sided. Practically all who came there regarded the muni-
tions industry as an accursed thing, and made no secret of their
glee at the misfortunes which befell it; at shipyards which
caught fire and burned up, at railroad-bridges and ships at sea
destroyed by mysterious explosions. Kumme, a wizened-up,
grizzle-haired old fellow with a stubby nose and a buUet-head,
would fall to cursing in a mingling of English and German
when any one so much as mentioned the fleets of ships that
went across the water, loaded with shells to kill Gennan sol-
diers; he would point a skinny finger at whoever would listen
to him, declaring that the Germans in this country were not
slaves, and would protect their Fatherland from the perfidious
British and their Wall Street hirelings. Kumme took a news-
paper printed in German, and a couple of weeklies published in
English for the promotion of the German cause; he would
mark passages in these papers and read them aloud — every-
thing that the mind of man could recall or invent that was
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82 JIMMIE HIGaiNS
discreditable to Britain, to France and Italy, to Wall street,
and to the nation which allowed Wall Street to bamboozle and
exploit it. There were many Americans who had "muck-
raked" their own country in the interests of social reform,
and had praised the social system of Germany. These argu-
ments the German propagandists now found useful, and Jim-
mie would take them to the Socialist local and pass them about.
From the meeting of the local he and Meissner would go to the
saloon where they had rendezvous with Jerry Coleman, who
would distribute more ten dollar biUs to be used in the printing
of anti-war literature.
Old Kumme had a nephew by the name of Heinrich, who
paid him a visit now and then. He was a tall, fine-looking
fellow, who spoke much better English than his uncle, and
wore better clothes. Finally he came to st^y, and Kumme
announced that he was to help in the shop. They didn't need
any help that Jimmie could see, and certainly not from a
feUow like Heinrich, who couldn't tell a spoke from a handle-
bar; but it was none of Jimmie's business, so Heinrich put on
working clothes, and spent a couple of weeks sitting behind
the counter conversing in low tones with men who came to see
him. After a while he took to going out again, and finally
announced that he had secured a job in the Empire.
II
And then to the hangers-on in the shop there was another
addition — an Irish workingman named Eeilly. The Irishman
was a peculiar problem in the war — the thorn in the Allied
conscience, the weak spot in their armour, the broken link
in their chain of arguments; and so every German was happy
when an Irishman entered the room. This fellow Eeilly came
to have a punctured tire mended, and stopped to tell what he
thought about the world-situation. Old man Kumme slapped
him over the back, and shook him by the hand, and told him
he was the right sort, and to come again. So Eeilly took to
hanging about; he would pull from his pocket a paper called
"Hibernia," and Kumme would produce from imder the
counter a paper called "Germania," and the two would de-
nounce "perfidious Albion" by the hour. Jimmie, bending
over the straightening of a sprocket, would look up and grin,
and exclaim, "You bet!"
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JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT 83
It was winter-time; and darkness came early, and Jimmie
was doing his work by electric light in the back of the shop,
when Eeilly came and mysteriously drew him into a corner.
Did he really mean what he said about hatred of war, and will-
ingness to fight against it? The Empire Shops were now turn-
ing out thousands of shell-casings every day, to be used in
the murder of men. It was useless to try to start a strike,
there were so many spies at work, and they fired every man
who opened his mouth; if an outsider tried it they would send
him to jail — for of course old Granitch had the city government
in his vest-pocket.
All this was an old story to Jimmie ; but now the Irishman
went on to a new proposition. There was a way to stop the
work of the Empire, a way that had been tried in other places,
and had worked. Eeilly knew where to get some T.N.T. — an
explosive many times more powerful than dynamite. They
could make bombs out of the steel tubing of bicycles, and
Jimmie, knowing the Empire Shops as he did, could find a
way to get in and arrange matters. There was big money in
it--the fellows who did that job might live on Easy Street
the rest of their lives.
Jimmie was stunned. He had been perfectly sincere in
classifying German spies with sea-serpents; and here was a
sea-serpent right before his eyes, raising his head through the
floor of Kumme's bicycle-shop !
Jimmie answered that he had never had anything to do with
that sort of thing. That wasn^t the way to stop war; that was
only making more war. The other began to argue with him,
showing that it wouldn't hurt anybody; the explosion would
take place at night, and all that would be damaged would be
Abel Granitch's purse. But Jimmie was obdurate; fortimately
one thing that had been incessantly pounded into his head at
the local was that the movement could not use conspiracy,
it must work by open propaganda, winning the minds and
consciences of men.
First the Irishman became angry, and called him a coward
and a molly-coddle. Then he became suspicious, amd wanted
to know if Jimmie would sell him out to the Empire. Jimmie
laughed at this; he had no love for Abel Granitch — ^the damned
old skunk might do his own spying. Jimmie would simply
have nothing to do with the matter, one way or the other.
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84 JIMMIE HIGGINS
And so the project was dropped; but the little machinist t
moved to keep his eyes open after that, and he made note
how many Germans, all strangers, were making the shop
meeting place; also the quick intimacy which had develoj
between the Irishman and Heinrich, Kumme's nephew \i
held himself so straight and had no back to his head.
Matters came to a climax with startling suddenness —
explosion of a bomb, though not the kind which Jimmie i
expecting. It was an evening in February, just as he ^
about to close up, when he saw the door of the shop open, a
four men walk in. They came with a peculiar, business-1
air, two of them to the puzzled Jimmie, and the other two
Kumme. One turned back the lapel of his coat, showing a lai
gold star, and announcing, "I am an agent of the governme
and you are under arrest." And at the same time the other sei;
Jimmie's arms and slipped a pair of handcufiEs over his wrii
He passed his hands over his prisoner, a ceremony known
"frisking"; and at the same time the other men had seii
Kumme. Jimmie saw two more men enter at the rear door
the shop, but they had nothing to dp, for both Jimmie a
Kumme had been too much startled to make any move
escape.
They were led out to an automobile, shoved in and whir]
away. No questions were answered, so after a bit they stopj
asking questions and sat still, reflecting upon all the sins tl
had ever committed in their lives, and upon the chances
these sins being known to the police.
Ill
Jimmie thought he was going to jail, of course ; but inste
they took him to the Post Office building, to an upstairs roo
Kumme was taken to another room, and Jimmie did not i
him again ; all that Jimmie had time to know or to think ab(
was a stern-faced young man who sat at a desk and put him
a griddle. "It is my duty to inform you that everything 3
state may be used against you," said this young man; and th
without giving Jimmie a chance to grasp the meaning of th
words, he began firing questions at him. All through 1
ordeal the two detectives stood by his side, and in a con
of the room, at another desk, a stenographer was busily recordi
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JIMMIB HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT 85
what he said. Jimmie knew there were such things as stenog-
raphers — ^for had he not come near falling in love with one
flinly a short time before ?
, "Your name?" said the stern-faced young man; and then,
"Where do you live ?" And then, "Tell me all you know about
this bomb-conspiracy."
"But I don't know nothin' !" cried Jimmie.
"You are in the hands of the Federal government," replied
the young man, "and your only chance will be to make a clean
breast. If you wiU help us, you may get off."
"But I don't know nothin'!" cried Jimmie, again.
"You have heard talk about dynamiting the Empire Shops ?"
"Y-yes, sir."
i^ "Who?"
"A man " Jimmie got that far, and then he recollected
the promise he had given. "I — I can't tell !" he said.
"Why not?"
"It wouldn't be right."
I "Do you believe in dynamiting buildings?"
"No, sir !" Jimmie put into this reply a note of tense sin-
cerity; and so the other began to argue with him. Atrocious
crimes had been committed all over the country, and the govern-
ment wished to put a stop to them ; surely it was the duty of a
decent citizen to give what help he could. Jimmie listened until
a sweat of anxiety stood out on his forehead; but he could not
bring himself to. "peach" on a fellow-workingman. No,, not if
he were sent to jail for ten or twenty years, as the stern-faced
young man told him might happen.
"You told Eeilly you wouldn't have anything to do with
bombs ?' asked the young man ; and Jimmie answered, "Sure, I
did!" And his poor head was so addled that he didn't even
realise that in his reply he had told what he had been vow-
ing he would never tell!
The questioner seemed to know all about everything, so it
was easy for him to lead Jimmie to teU how he had heard
Kumme cursing the Empire Shops, and the country, and the
President; how he had seen Kumme whispering to Eeilly, and
to Germans whose names he had not learned, and how he had
seen Heinrich, Kumme's nephew, cutting up lengths of steel
tubing. Then the questioner asked about Jerry Coleman.
How much money had Jimmie got, and just what had he done
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86 JIMMIE HIGGINS
with it? Jimmie refused to name other people; but when the
young man made the insinuation that Jimmie might have kept
some of the money for himself, the little machinist exclaimed
with passionate intensity — not one dollar had he kept, nor his
friend Meissner either; they had given statements to Jerry
Coleman, and this though many a time they had been hard up
for their rent. The police could ask Comrade Gerrity and Com-
rade Mary Allen, and the other members of the local.
So the questioner led Jimmie on to talk about the Germans
in the movement. Schneider, the brewer, for example — ^he was
one of those who cursed the Allies most vehemently, and he had
been in this bomb-conspiracy. Jimmie was "indignant; Com-
rade Schneider was as good a Socialist as you could find, and
Socialists had nothing to do with bombs! But young Emil
Forster — he had been making explosives in his spare hours,
had he not? At which Jimmie became still more outraged.
He knew young Emil well; the boy was a carpet-designer and
musician, and if anybody had told such tales about him, they
were lying, that was all. The questioner went on for an hour
or so, tormenting poor Jimmie with such doubts and fears;
imtil finally he dropped a little of his sternness of manner,
and told Jimmie that he had merely been trying him out, to
see what he knew about various men whose pro-German feel-
ings had brought them under suspicion. No, the government
had no evidence of crime against Schneider or Forster, or any
of the bona-fide Socialists. They were just plain fools, letting
themselves be used as tools of German plotters, who were
spending money like water to make trouble in munitions
factories all over the country.
IT
The questioner, who explained himself as a "special agent"
of the Department of Justice, went on to read Jimmie a lecture.
A sincere man like himself ought to be ashamed to let himself
be taken in by German conspirators, who were trying to break
up American industry, to lead American labour by the nose.
"But they want to stop the making of munitions!" cried
Jimmie.
"But that's only so that Germany can make more muni-
tions !"
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JIMMIB HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT 87
"But I'm opposed to their being made in Germany, tool"
"What can you do to stop it in Germany?"
"I'm an international Socialist. When I oppose war in my
x)wn country, I help the Socialists to oppose it in other coun-
tries. I ain't a-going to stop — not so long as I've got any
breath left in me !" And here was Comrade Jimmie, delivering
a sermon on pacifism to the "special agent" of the government, '
who held his fate in his hands! But no one was going to
defend war to Jimmie Higgins and not be answered — even
though Jimmie might go to jail for the rest of his life !
The young man laughed — ^more genially than Jimmie would
have thought possible at the start of this grilling. "Higgins,"
he said, "you're a good-natured idiot. You can thank your lucky
stars that one of the men you trusted happened to be a govern-
ment detective. If we didn't know the truth about you, you
might have had a hard time clearing yourself."
Jimmie's jaw had fallen. "A government detective! Who
is the government detective?"
"Eeilly," said the young man.
"EeiUy ? But it was him that tempted me !"
"Well, congratulate yourself that you resisted temptation!"
"But maybe he tempted Heinrich too !"
"No — Heinrich didn't have to be tempted. It was on
account of Heinrich that we began the investigation. He has
been making explosives and planting them all over the country.
His name isn't Heinrich, and he isn't a nephew of Kumme;
his name is von Holtz, and he's a Prussian oflBcer, a personal
friend of the Kaiser."
Jimmie was speechless. For the love of Mike! He had
been sitting in the back part of old Kumme's bicycle-shop,
filling his pipe from the tobacco-pouch of a personal friend of
the Kaiser! He had called this personal friend of the Kaiser
a dub and a jack-ass, informing him that a real mechanic
could put a ball-bearing together while he, the personal friend
of the Kaiser, was spitting on his hands. Could you beat it?
Mr. Harrod, the "special agent," informed Jimmie that he
would have to testify as to what he knew ; and Jimmie was so
indignant at the way he had been taken in that he was willing
to do BO. He would have to give bond to appear, added the
other ; did he know any one who would vouch for him ? Jimmie
racked his harassed brain. Comrade Dr. Service might eon-
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88 JIMMIB HIGGINS
sent, if he were quite sure that Jimmie had not really meant
to help the Germans. Mr. Harrod kindly consented to give this
assurance, and called up Dr. Service, whom he seemed to know,
and told him the circumstances: Dr. Service finally said that
he would put up a couple of thousand dollars to guarantee
Jimmie's appearance before the grand jury and at the trial.
Mr. Harrod added that if Dr. Service would promise to come
in the morning and attend to the matter, the government would
take his word and let the witness go for the night. The doctor
promised, and Jimmie was told that he was free till ten o'clock
next morning. He went out, like a sky-lark escaping from a
cage!
He had been warned not to talk to any one, so he told
Lizzie that he had been kept late to make repairs on a motor-
cycle. And next morning he got up at the usual hour, to
avoid exciting suspicion, and went and stared at the shop,
which was locked up, with a policeman on guard. He bought
a copy of the Leesville "Herald,-' and read the thrilling story
of the German plot which had been unearthed in Leesville.
There were half a dozen conspirators under arrest, and more
than a dozen bombs had been found, all destined to be set off
in the Empire Shops. Franz Heinrich von Holtz, who had
blown up a bridge in Canada and put an infernal machine on
board a big Atlantic liner, had been nailed at last !
Half an hour before time, Jimmie was waiting at the Post
Office building, and when Comrade Dr. Service arrived, they
went in and signed the bond. Coming out again, the grim and
forbidding doctor ordered Jimmie into his car, and oh, what a
dressing-down he did give him! He had Jimmie where he
wanted him — right over his kneeS: — and before h6 let him up
he surely did make him burn! The little machinist had been
so cock-sure of himself ; going ahead to end the war, by stopping
the shipping of munitions, and paying no heed to warnings
from men older and wiser than himself I And now see what he
had got himself in for — ^arrested with a gang of fire-bugs and
desperadoes, under the 'control and in the pay of a personal
friend of the Kaiser!
Poor Jimmie couldn't put up much of a defence: he was
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JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT 89
cowed, for once. He could only say that he had had no evil
intention — he had merely been agitating against the trade in
munitions — a wicked thing
"Wicked?" broke in the Comrade Doctor. "The thing upon
which the freedom of mankind depends !"
"W-what?" exclaimed Jimmie; for these words sounded to
him like sheer lunacy.
The other explained. "A nation that means to destroy its
neighbours sets to work and puts all its energies into making
guns and shells. The free peoples of the world won't follow
suit — you can't persuade them to do it, because they don't believe
in war, they can't realise that their neighbours intend to make
war. So, when they are attacked, their only chance for life
is to go out into the open market and buy the means of defence.
And you propose to deprive them of that right — to betray them,
to throw them under the hoofs of the war-monster! You,
who call yourself a believer in justice, make yourself a tool of
such a conspiracy! You take German money "
"I never took no German money !" cried Jimmie, wildly.
"Didn't Kumme pay you money?"
"But I worked in his shop — I done my ten hours a day
right straight !"
"And this fellow Jerry Coleman? Hasn't he given you
money ?"
"But that was for propaganda — he was agent for Labour's
National Peace Council "
And the Comrade Doctor fairly snorted. "How could you
be such an ass ? Don't you read the news ? But no — of course
you don't — you only read German dope!" And the Comrade
Doctor drew out his pocket-book, which was bursting with
clippings, and selected one from a New York paper, telling
how the government was proceeding against the officials of an
organisation called "Labour's National Peace Council" for
conspiring to cause strikes and violence. The founder of the
organisation was a person known as "the Wolf of Wall Street" ;
the funds had been furnished by a Prussian army officer, an
attache of the German legation, who had used his official
immunity to incite conspiracy and wholesale destruction of
property in a friendly country. What had Jimmie to say to
that?
And poor Jinmiie for once had nothing to say. He sat.
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90 JIMMIE HIGGINS
completely crushed. Not merely the money which he had got
from Kumme on Saturday night, but also the ten dollar bills
which Jerry Coleman had been slipping into his hand — they
too had come from the Kaiser! Was the whole radical move-
ment to be taken over by the Kaiser, and Jimmie Higgins put
out of his job?
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CHAPTER IX
JIMMIE HIGQINS RETURNS TO NATURB
l^ UMMB'S bieycle-shop went out of business, and its contents
**■ were sold at auction. Jimmie Higgins watched the process
wistfullyj reflecting how, if he had not wasted his substance
on Socialist tracts, if he had saved a bit of his wages like any
normal human being, he might have bought this little business
and got a start in life. But alas, such hopes were not for
Jimmie ! He must remain in the condition which the President
of his country described as "industrial serfdom"; he must
continue to work for some other man's profit, to be at the
mercy of some other man's whim.
He found himseK a job in the railroad-shops; but in a
couple of weeks came an organiser, trying to start a union in
the place. Jimmie, of course, joined; how could he refuse?
And so the next time he went to get his pay he found a green
slip in his envelope, informing him that the Atlantic Western
Eailroad Company would no longer require his services. No
explanation was given, and none sought — ^for Jimmie was old
in the ways of American wage-slavery, euphemistically referred
to as "industrial serfdom."
He got another start as helper to a truckman. It was the
hardest work he had yet done — all the harder because the boss
was a dull fellow who would not talk about politics or the war.
So Jimmie was discontented; perhaps the spring-time was
getting into his blood ; at any rate, he hunted through his Sun-
day paper, and came on an advertisement of a farmer who
wanted a "hand." It was six miles out in the country, and
Jimmie, remembering his walk with the Candidate, treated him-
self to a Sunday afternoon excursion. He knew nothing about
farm- work, and said so; but the munition-factories had drained
7 91
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92 JIMMIE HIGGINS
so much labour from the land that the farmer was glad to get
anybody. He had a "tenant-house" on his place, and on Mon-
day moriiing Jimmie hired his former boss — ^the truckman —
to move his few sticks of furniture; he bade farewell to his
little friend Meissner, aM next day was learnmg to milk cows
and steer a plough.
So Jimmie came back to the bosom of his ancient Mother.
But alas, he came, not to find joy and health, not as a free
man, to win his own way and make a new life for himself; he
came as a soil-slave, to drudge from dawn to dark for a hire
that barely kept him going. The farmer was the owner of
Jimmie's time, and Jimmie disliked him heartily, because he
was surly-tempered and stingy, abusing his horses and nagging
at his hired man. Jimmie's education in farm-economics was
not thorough enough to >enable him to realise that John Cutter
was as much of a slave as himself — bound by a mortgage to
Ashton Chalmers, President of the First National Bank of
LeesviUe. John drudged from dawn to dark, just as Jimmia
did, and in addition had all the worry and fear; his wife was a
sallow and hollow-chested drudge, who took as many bottles of
patent-medicine as poor Mrs. Meissner.
But Jimmie kept fairly cheerful because he was learning
new things, and because he saw how good it was for the babies,
who were getting fresh air and better food than they had ever
had in their little lives before. All summer long he ploughed
and harrowed and hoed, he tended horses and cows and pigs
and chickens, and drove to town with farm-truck to be sold.
He would be too' tired at night even to read his Socialist papers;
for six months he let the world go its way unhindered — its way
of desperate strife and colossal anguish. It was the time when
the, German hordes hurled themselves against the fortifications
of Verdun. For five horrible months they came on, wave upon
endless wave; the people of France set their teeth and swore,
"They shall not pass !" and the rest of civilisation waited, hold-
ing its breath.
II
The only chance Jimmie had to talk about these matters
was of a Saturday night when he strolled up to the store at a
near-by cross-roads. The men he met here were of a new type
to him — as different from factory people as if they came from
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JIMMIB HIGGINS RETURNS TO NATURE 93
another planet. Jimmie had been taught to laugh at them as
"hayseeds"; intellectually he regarded them as relics of a
vanished age, so of course he could not listen to their talk very
long without "butting in." He began with the declaration
that the Allies were as bad as the Germans. He got away with
that, because they had all been taught to hate the "Britishers" in
their schoolbooks, and they didn't know very much about
Frenchmen and "Eye-talians." But when Jimmie went on to
say that the American government was as bad as the German
government — that all governments were !run by capitalists,
and all went to war for foreign markets and such plunder —
then what a hornets' nest he brought about his ears! "You
mean to say American armies would do what them Proosians
done in Belgium?" And when Jimmie answered Yes, an
indignant citizen rose from his seat on a cracker-box, and
tapped him on the shoulder and said : "Look here, young feller,
you better run along home. You'll git yerself a coat of tar
and feathers if you talk too much round these parts."
So Jimmie shut up for a while; and when he went out
with his armful of purchases, an aged, white-whiskered patri-
arch who had been listening got up and followed him out.
"I'm goin' your way," he said. "Git in with me." Jimmie
climbed into the buggy; and while the bony old mare ambled
along through the summer-night the driver asked questions
about Jimmie's hfe. Where had he been brought up? How
had it been possible for a man to live all his life in America,
and know so little about his native land?
Peter Drew was this old farmer's name, and he had been
in the first battle of Bull Run, and had fought with the Army
of Northern Virginia all the way to Richmond. So he knew
how American armies behave ; he could tell Jimmie about a mil-
lion free men who had rushed to arms to save their nation's in-
tegrity, and had made a clean job of it, and then gone quietly
back to their work at farm and forge. Jimmie had heard
Comrade Mary Allen, the Quaker, make the statement that
"Force never settled anything." He repeated this now, and the
other replied that an American ought to be the last person in
the world to make such a statement, for his country had pro-
vided the best illustration in history of the importance of a
good job of spanking. It was force that had settled the slavery
question — and settled it so that now you might travel in the
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South and have a hard time to find a man that would want
to unsettle it.
But Jimmie knew nothing about all that; he knew nothing
about anything in America., The old man said it frightened
him to realise that the country had let a man grow up in it
with so little understanding of its souL All that precious
tradition, utterly dead so far as Jimmie was concerned! All
those heroes who had died to make free the land in which he
lived, and to keep it free — and he did not know their names,
he did not even know the names of the great battles they had
fought ! The old man's voice trembled and he laid his hand on
Jimmie's knee.
The little Socialist tried to explain that he had dreams of
his own. He was fighting for international freedom — ^his
patriotism was higher and wider than any one country. And
that was all right, said the other, but why kick down the ladder
by which you had climbed — and especially when you had per-
haps not entirely finished climbing ? Why not know the better
side of your own country, and appeal to it? Peter Drew went
on to tell of a speech he had heard Abraham Lincoln make,
and to quote things Lincoln had said ; could Jimmie doubt that
Lincoln would have opposed the rule of the country by Wall
Street? And when a country had been shaped and guided by
such men as Lincoln, why trample its face and besmirch its
good name — just because there were in it some evil men con-
tending against its ideals of freedom and democracy ?
This old soldier lived about a mile from Jimmie, and asked
his new friend to come and see him. So the next afternoon,
which was Sunday, Lizzie put on a newly starched dress, and
Jimmie packed the two littlest infants in the double perambu-
lator, and took Jimmie Junior's chubby hand, and they trudged
down the road to the farm-house which the old man's father
had built. Mrs. Drew was a sweet-faced, rather tired looking
old lady, but he'r pale eyes seemed to smile with hospitality,
and she brought out a basket of ripe peaches, and sat and
chatted sympathetically with Lizzie about the care of babies,
while Jimmie and the old man sat under the shade of an elm
tree by the kitchen-door and discussed American history. Jim-
mie listened to stories of battle and imprisonment, of monster
heroisms and self-immolations. Up to this time he had been
looking at war from the outside, as it were; but now he got a
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JIMMIE HIGGINS RETURNS TO NATURE 95
glimpse of the soul of it, he began to understand how a man
might be willing to leave his home and his loved ones, and
march out to fight and sufEer and die to save his country in
which he believed.
And here was another new idea: this old fellow had been a
soldier, had fought through four years of incessant battles, and
yet he had not lost his goodness. He was kind, gentle, generous ;
he gave dignity to the phrases at which Jimmie had been taught
to mock. It was impossible not to respect such a man; and so
little by little Jimmie was made to reflect that there might be
such a thing as the soul of America, about which Peter Drew
was all the time talking. Perhaps there was really more to
the country than Wall Street speculators and grafting politicians,
policemen with clubs and militiamen with bayonets to stick
into the bodies of workingmen who tried to improve their lot
in life!
Ill
In the course of the summer Jimmie had to take several
days off and go into Leesville to attend the trial of the Ger-
man plotters. He had to take the witness-stand and tell all he
know about Kumme and Heinrich and the other men who had
frequented the bicycle-shop. It was a very serious experience,
and before it was over Jimmie was heartily glad that he had
rejected the invitation to help blow up the Empire Machine
Shops. The trial ended with a sentence of six months for Jim-
mie's old employer, and of two years each for Heinrich and his
pals. The law allowed no more — to the intense disgust of the
Leesville "Herald." The "Herald" was in favour of a life-
sentence for any one who interfered with the industry upon
which the prosperity of the city depended.
Among those who came to the trial was Comrade Smith,
editor of the "Worker," and Jimmie sat with him in Tom's
"Buffeteria," and heard an account of the latest developments
in the Empire Shops. The movement of discontent had been
entirely crushed ; the great establishment was going at full blast,
both .day and night. They were taking on hundreds of new
hands, mostly women and girls, speeding them faster and faster,
turning out tens of thousands of sheU-casings every day. And
still they were not satisfied ; new buildings were going up, the
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96 JIMMIE HIGGINS
concern was spreading like a huge blot over the landscape.
There was talk of an explosives factory nearby, so that shells
might be filled as fast as they were made.
The "boom" conditions continued in Leesville; speculators
were reaping harvests, it seemed as if the masters of the city
were all' on a spree. Comrade Smith advised Jimmie to stay
where he was, for it was getting to be harder and harder for
the workers in Leesville to get anything to eat. But out on
the heights along the river front, the part of the city called
"Nob Hill," new palaces were rising. And it was that way
all over the Eastern part of the country, said the young editor ;
the rich no longer knew what to do with their millions.
On the day the trial ended, Jimmie stayed in town to attend
a meeting of the local and pay his back dues. So he met all
his old friends, and heard "Wild Bill" get up and deliver one
of his tirades. Bill had in his hand a newspaper clipping tell-
ing of the amazing madness that had struck Wall Street.
Munition-stocks were soaring to prices beyond belief; "war-
babies," men called them, with unthinkably cynical wit. On
the "Great White Way," to which they rushed to celebrate thesb
new Arabian Nights,, there was such an orgy of dissipation
as the world had never seen. "And this is what we have to
slave for!" yelled "Wild Bill" — looking wilder than ever since
the police had broken his nose and knocked out his three front
teeth. "This is why we are chained to our jobs — shut up in
jail if we so much as open our mouths! Piling up millions
for old man Granitch, so that young Lacey can marry chorus-
girls and divorce them — or steal away another man's wife, as
they say he's doing just now!"
Then young Emil Forster spoke, explaining to Jimmie the
inner significance of terrific world-events. Russia was in the
midst of a gigantic offensive, which was meant to overwhelm
Austria; England at the same time was hurling in her new
armies on the Somme; ,for these two giant movements they
wanted shells — millions and millions of shells from America,
which alone could make enough of them. The railroads were
clogged with them, they were piled mountain-high at the term-
inals and ports; whole fleets of steamers were loading up with
them, and proceeding to England and France, and to Russia
by way of Archangel. And of course the German submarines
were out to stop them; the whole world Ivas like a powder-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS RETURNS TO NATURE 97
magazine over the issue. The President, by his series of notes,
had forced Germany to agree not to sink passenger-vessels ; but
this promise vfas not easy to keep — accidents kept hapjiening,
and the temper of the peoples was rising, America was being
drawn nearer every hour to the vortex of this dreadful strife. —
Such was the picture which Jimmie carried back to the farm;
you could hardly wonder if he missed that peace and joy
which men are supposed to imbibe at the bosom of their Mother
Nature 1
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CHAPTER X
JIMMIE EIGGINS MEETS THE 0WNEI8
TT was late at night when Jimmie left the Socialist local,
^ and took the trolley out into the country. He had to walk
nearly two miles from where he got off, and a thunder-storm
had come up ; he got out and started to trudge through the dark-
ness and the floods of rain. Several times he slipped o£E the
road into the ditch, and once he fell prone, and got up and
washed the mud from his eyes and nose with the stream of
fresh water pouring about his head. While he was thus occu-
pied he heard the sound of a horn, and saw a glare of light
rushing up. He jumped into the ditch again, and a big
automobile went by at a fast pace, spattering showers of mud
all over him. He plodded on, swearing to himself. Some of
them munition-millionaires, no doubt — tearii^g over the country
at night, honking their horns like they owned the roads, and
covering poor walking people with their splashings!
And so on, until Jimmie came round a turn of the road,
and saw the white glare of light again, this time standing still.
It seemed to be pointing up into the trees; and when he got
nearer he made out the reason — it had run oflE the road into'
the ditch, arid then up the other slope, and there rolled over
onto its side.
"Hello !" said a voice, as Jimmie came slopping up.
"Hello!" he answered.
"How far is it to the nearest house ?"
"Maybe half a mile."
"Who lives there?"
"I do."
"/Have you got a horse and buggy?"
"There's one at the big house, just a piece beyond."
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JIMMIE HIOGINS MEETS THE OWNER 99
"Do you suppose we could get enough men to turn this car
over ?"
"I dunno ; there ain't many about here."
"Damn!" muttered the man to himself. Then, after a
moment, "Well, there's no use staying here." This to his
companion, whom Jimmie made out to be a woman. She was
standing still, with the cold rain pouring over her. The man
put his arm about her, and said to Jimmie, "Lead the way,
please." So Jimmie set out, slopping through the mud as be-
fore.
Nothing more was said until they reached the "tenant-
house" where the Jimmies lived. But meantime the little
Socialist's mind was busy; it seemed to him that the man's
voice was familiar, and he was trying to recall where and how
he had heard it before. They came to the house, which was
dark, and the couple stood on the porch while Jimmie went in
and groped for a match and lighted the single smoky oil-lamp
on which the household depended. Carrying it in his hand, he
went to the door and invited the couple in. They came ; and so
Jimmie got a glimpse of the face of the man, and almost
dropped the lamp right there where he stood. It was Lacey
Granitch !
11
The yoimg lord of Leesville was too much occupied with his
own affairs to notice the look on the face of the yokel before
him; or perhaps he was so used to being recognised, and to being
stared at by yokels. He looked about the room and saw a stove.
"Can you get us a fire, so this lady can get dry?"
"Y-yes," said Jimmie. "I-I suppose so." But he made
no move; he stood rooted to the spot.
"Lacey," put in the woman, "don't stop for that. Get the
car started, or get another." And Jimmie looked at her; she
was rather smaU, and very beautiful — quite the most beautiful
human creature that Jimmie had ever looked at. One could see
that she was expensively dressed, even though everything she
had on was soaked with rain.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lacey. "You can't travel till you
get dry — ^you'd be ill." And he turned upon Jimmie. "Get a
fire, won't you ?" he exclaimed. "A big fire. I'll make it worth
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100 JIMMIE HIGGINS
while to you for whatever you do. Only don't stand there
gaping all night," he added impatiently.
Jimmie leaped to obey; partly because he had been in the
habit of leaping to obey all his life — but also partly because
he was sorry for the beautiful wet lady, and because, if he stood
and stared any longer, Lacey Granitch might recognise him.
The moment when Jimmie had been singled out in the herd of
strikers and cursed by the yoimg master of the Empire Machine
Shops was one of the most vivid memories of Jimmie's re-
bellious life, and it did not occur to him that the incident
might not have equally impressed the other participant.
In a few minutes the stove was hot ; and urged by her escort,
the lady took off her driving-coat and hat, and hung them over
a chair. Everything underneath was wet, and the man urged
her to take off her skirt and waist. "What does he matter?"
he argued, referring to Jimmie ; but the lady would not do it.
She stood by the stove, shivering slightly, and pleading with
her escort to make haste, . to find some way to get the car
running again. They might be followed
"Oh, nonsense, Helen!" cried Lacey. "You are torment-
ing yourself with nightmares. Be sensible, and get dry." He
piled the wood into the stove, and ordered Jimmie to get an-
other armful; and Jimmie obeyed with his hands and feet —
but meantime his rebellious little brain was taking in every
detail of the situation, putting this and that together.
The talking had waked up Lizzie, so Jimmie rushed into
the next room and whispered, "Lacey Granitch is here!" If
he had told her that the Angel Gabriel was there, or Jehovah
with all his thunders and his retinue of seraphim, poor Lizzie
could not have been more stunned. Jimmie ordered her to get
up, and get on her dress and shoes, and get a cup of coffee
for the lady ; the dazed woman obeyed — ^though she would rather
have crawled under the bed than face the celestial personages
who had taken possession of her home.
Ill
Lacey ordered Jimmie to accompany him, to find some help
to get the car into travelling condition. They went out together,
and on the porch, before ' they braved the rain again, young
Granitch stopped and spoke : "See here, my man ; I want you
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE OWNER 101
to help me get a gang together, and I want you to keep quiet,
please — say nothing about who was in the car. If any other
people come along and ask questions, keep your mouth shut, and
I'll make it worth while to you — ^well worth while. Do you
understand ?"
Every instinct in Jimmie Higgins was ready to answer,
"Yes, sir." That was what he had always answered to such
commands — he, and his father, and his father's fathers before
him. But something else within him resisted this instinct —
the new revolutionary psychology which he had so painfully
acquired, and which made continual war upon his old-time
docilities. It seemed that this was the moment, if ever in his
life, to show the stufE he was made of. He clenched his hands,
and everything in him turned to iron. "Who is that lady?"
he demanded.
Lacey Granitch was so taken aback that he started visibly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean — is she your wife? Or is she some other man's
wife?"
"Why you damned " And the young lord of Leesville
stopped, speechless. Jimmie fell back a couple of steps, as a
matter of precaution, but he did not weaken in his rigid resolve.
"I know you, Mr. Granitch," he said; "and I know what
you're doing. You might as well know you ain't foolin' no-
body."
"What the hell is it to you?" cried the other; but then he
stopped again, and Jimmie heard him breathing hard. Evi-
dently he made an effort to keep his self-control ; when he spoke
again, his voice was quieter. "Listen, my good fellow," he said.
"You have a chance to make a good deal of money to-night "
"I don't want your money !" broke in Jimmie. "I wouldn't
touch your filthy money, that you get by murdering men !"
"My God!" said Lacey Granitch; and then, weakly: "What
' have you got against ine ?"
"What have I got? I was workin' in the Empire, an' I
went on strike for my rights, an' you cursed me like I was a dog,
an' you sent the police an' had me arrested, an' they smashed
Wild Bill's nose, an' sent me up for ten days when I hadn't
done nothin' "
"Oh! So that's it, is it?"
"Yes, that's it; but I wouldn't mind that so much — ^if it
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102 JIMMIfi HIGGINS
wasn't for them shells you're makin' to kill men over in Europe.
And you spendin' the money drinkin' champagne with chorus-
girls, an' running o£E with other men's wives!"
"You " and Lacey uttered a foul oath, and leaped at
Jimmie ; but Jimmie had expected that, he was looking out for
himself. There was no railing to the little porch on which he
stood, and he leaped off to- the ground and away. Because he
knew the lay of the land, he could run faster in the darkness
than his pursuer.
He sped down the path and out into the road — and there
was the headlight of an automobile, almost upon him. The
vehicle came to an instant stop, and a startled voice cried,
"Hey, there!"
"Hey, there!" answered Jimmie, and stopped in the light;
for he did not believe that his enemy would dare pursue him
there.
The voice from the car spoke again. "There's an automobile
off the road a ways back here. Do you know anything about
who the people are that were driving it?"
"Sure I do !" answered Jimmie promptly.
"Where are they?"
"They're up in that house — Lacey Granitch an' a lady
named Helen "
And instantly the door of the car was flung open. A man
leaped out, and another man, and another; they kept coming —
Jimmie would not have believed that an automobile could have
held so many people. Not one of them said a word, but all
started on the run for Jimmie's house as if they were charging
in a battle.
IV
Jimmie followed behind. He heard Bounds of a scufle op
the lawn, and screams from inside. At first the little farm-
hand could not make up his mind what to do, but finally he
ran to the house ; and there in the front room he saw the beauti-
ful lady, with her wet hair streaming down her back, and the
tears streaming down her face, sunk on her knees before the
man who had hailed Jimmie from the automobile. She had
caught his coat with her two hands, and clung to it with such
desperation that when he tried to draw away he dragged her
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE OWNER 103
alon^ the floor. "Paul!" she was screaming. "What are you
going to do?"
"Be quiet! Be quiet!" commanded the man. He was
young, tall and superhumanly handsome ; his face had the white
light of a passipnate resolve, his lips were set like those of a
man who is marching to his death in battle. "Answer me!"
cried the woman again and again; until finally he said: "I
shan't kill him ; but I mean to teach him his lesson."
"Paul, Paul, have mercy !" sobbed the woman ; she went on
pleading hysterically, in the most dreadful distress that Jimmie
had ever seen or heard. "It wasn't his fault, Paul, it was
mine! I did it all! Oh, for Christ's sake! You are driving
me mad!" She moaned, she implored, she sobbed till she
choked herself; and when the man tried to tear her hands
loose she fought with him, he could not get free of her.
"You're not going to move me, Helen," he declared. "You
might as well get that clear."
"But I tell you it was my fault, Paul! I ran away with
him!"
"All right," answered the man, grimly. "I'll fix him so
no other man's wife will ever run away with him."
Her clamour continued more wildly than ever, until two
other men came into the room. "Joe," said Paul, to one of
them, "take her down to the car and keep her there. Don't
let her call for help — if anybody comes along, keep her quiet,
keep your hand tight over her mouth."
"Paul, you're a fiend!" shrieked the woman. "I'U kill you
for this !"
"You're welcome to," answered the man. "I shouldn't
care — but I'm going to do this job before I die." And he tore
the woman's hands away from him, and by his stern anger he
gave the other two men the necessary resolution. They carried
her, half fainting, out of the room.
All this time Jimmie Higgins had been standing Uke one
turned to stone; and Lizzie had shrunk into a far corner of the
room, all but paralysed with terror. Now the man turned to
them. "My good people," he said, "we want to borrow your
room for a half hour or so. We'll pay you well for it — enough
to buy the whole house if you want to."
"W-w-what are you goin' to do?" stammered Jimmie.
"We're going to teach a little fundamental morality to a
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104 JIMMIE HIGGINS
yoTing man whose education has been neglected/' replied the
other. That somehow did not tell Jimmie very much, but he
forbore to speak again, for never in all his life had he seen a
man who conveyed to him the impression of such resistless
force as this man. He was truly a superhuman creature, terri-
fying, panoplied in lightnings of wrath.
The door of the house opened again, and Lacey Graniteh
came in, with a man on each side holding him by the arms,
and a pair of handcuffs on his wrist. Of all the dreadful
spectacles that Jimmie had seen that dreadful night, the worst
was the face of the young master of the Empire Machine Shops.
It was green — absolutely and literally green. His knees trembled
so that he seemed about to sink to the floor, and his dark eyes
were those of an animal in a trap.
There came another man behind him carrying two black
cases in his hands. He opened one, and took out some instru-
ment with wires attached, and hung part of it to a hook on the
wall; he pressed a switch, and a soft white radiance flooded the
room; The man who was in command, the one whom the lady
had called "Paul," now turned to Jimmie and his wife. "You
may take your lamp," he said. "Go into the other room and
stay there tiU we call you, please."
"W-w-what are you goin' to do?" Jimmie found courage to
stammer again. But the other merely bade him to go into the
other room and ^tay, and it would be all right, and he would be
well paid for his time and trouble. There was no use trying
to interfere j no use trying to get away, for the house would be
watched.
Jimmie Junior had been wakened by the uproar, and was
whimpering; so Lizzie .hurried to quiet him, and Jimmie set
the little smoky lamp on the dresser, and went and sat on the
bed beside her, holding her hand in his. Both their hands were
shaking in a way that was amazing.
Every sound from the other room was plainly audible.
Lacey was pleading, and "Paul" commanded him to hold his
tongue. There was a scuffle, and then terrified moans, which
died away. There began to steal into the Higgins bed-room
a most ghastly odour; they could not imagine what it was.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE OWNER 105
And then they began to hear wild clamour from Lacey Granitch,
as if he were suffering in hell. It was awful beyond words;
the perspiration came out in beads on the faces of the listeners,
and Jimmie was just about making up his mind that it was
his duty to rush in and protest, or perhaps to climb out of the
window and make an effort to steal away and summon help,
when the door opened and the man called "Paul" came in,
closing the door behind him.
"If s all right," said he. "People always make a fuss
when they're given an anaesthetic, so don't let it frighten you."
And he stood here waiting, rigid, grim, while the sounds went
on. Finally they died away and silence fell — a long, long
silence. He opened the door and went back into the other
room, and the two Jimmies were left holding each other's shak-
ing hands.
Now and then they heard a man speak in a low voice, or
some one move across the room; and always that ghastly, over-
powering odour kept creeping in, making them think they would
die of suffocation, and their three babies also. The suspense
and horror had become almost unbearable — when finally they
began to hear Lacey Granitch again, moaning, sobbing-;— most
harrowing sounds. "My God! My God!" whispered Lizzie.
"What are they doing?" And when Jimmie did not answer,
she whispered again. "We ought to stop them! We ought to
get help!"
But then once more the door opened, and "Paul" came in.
"It's all right now," he said. "He's coming out." Neither of
the Jimmies had the least idea what "coming out" meant, but
they were reassured to know that the masterful person at least
was satisfied. They waited; they heard Lacey vomiting, as it
seemed — and then they heard him cursing, in between his feeble
gasps. He called the men the same foul name that he had
called Jimmie; and that somehow made the whole affair seem
better — it brought one down to earth again !
"Paul" went out and stayed for a while, and when he came
back, he said, "We're going now; and understand, there's
nothing for you to worry about. We shall leave the patient
here, and as soon as we get to a telephone, we'll notify the
hospital to send an ambulance. So all you have to do is to wait,
and keep quiet and don't worry. And here's something for
the use of your house " The man put out his hand with a
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106 JIMMIE HIGGINS
roll of bills, which Jimmie mechanically took — "and if any-
body asks you about what happened to-night, just say you didn't
see anything and don't know anything whatever about it. I'm
sorry to have troubled you, but it couldn't be helped. And
now, good night."
And so the masterful young man went out, and they heard
him and his companions tramping down the porch-steps. They
listened, until they heard the automobile start up and disappear
in the darkness. Then from the next room they heard a moan.
Trembling with terror, Jimmie got up and stole to the door,
and opened it a tiny crack. The room was in utter darkness.
"Get me some water !" the voice of Lacey groaned ; and Jimmie
tiptoed back, and got the little smoky lamp, and came to the
door again. He peered in, and saw that Lacey was lying on the
floor with a sheet over him — everything but his head, which was
resting oh a piUow. His face was yellow and twisted with
pain. "Water ! Water !" he sobbed ; and Jimmie rushed to get
a glass and fill it from the pail. When he brought it, Lacey
first tried to drink, and then began to vomit; then he lay,
sobbing softly to himself. He saw Jimmie staring at him, and
his eyes filled with sudden hate and he whispered, "This is
what you got me in for, you damned little skunk!"
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CHAPTER XI
JIMMIE HIGGINS FACES THE WAE
T^HB ambulance arrived, and the two attendants who came
'^ with it brought in a stretcher and carried young Granitch
away. Jimmie opened the windows to get rid of the odour of
ether, and meantime he and Lizzie sat for hours, discussing
every aspect of the dreadful scene they had witnessed, and
speculating as to its meaning. When Jimmie investigated the
roll of bills which had been slipped into his hand, he found
that there were ten of them, new, crisp, and bright yellow,
each having the figure twenty printed upon it. It was more
money than these two humble little people had ever had or
3xpected to have in all their lives. It was literally blood-money,
they felt, but it woiild be hard to see who would be benefited
if they rejected it. Certainly the deed which had been done
that night could not be undone — not for all the money that
old Granitch had heaped up in his vaults.
Jimmie kept quiet, as he had been bidden, and apparently
no one told about his part in the affair — no reporters came out to
his country home to ask for interviews. But when he went to
the cross-roads store a couple of nights later he found that the
story was all over — nobody was talking or thinking about any-
thing else. The news, in fact, had gone by telegraph all over
tjbe world, and wherever people read it they shuddered with
horror, and the Socialists had a choice illustration of the effect
of excessive wealth upon morals. _
There were half a dozen versions of the story, Jimmie
found; some declared that the outraged husband had caught
young Granitch in his home and had fetched a surgeon there;
others that he had taken him to a hospital; others that the
operation had been performed in a road-house nearby. But none
8 107
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108 JIMMIE HIGGINS
mentioned the tenant-house on the farm of John Cutter, and
Jimmie wrapped himself in his pride of superior knowledge,
and let the loungers in the country store chatter on. He would
go back each night for new gossip; and first he heard that old
man Granitch was meaning to have all the conspirators arrested
and sent to jail; but then it was said that young Lacey had left
the hospital and vanished, no one knew where. And they
never knew; never again did he appear to curse the strikers
at the Empire, nor to break the hearts of chorus-girls on the
Great White Way ! His grim old father's hair turned grey in a
few weeks;, and while he went on to fill his contracts with the
Eussian government, all men knew that his heart was eaten
out vrith grief and rage and shame,
Jimmie and his wife held numerous confabulations over those
twenty dollar bills. What should they do with their fortune?
The "Worker," always in need of funds, was just now issuing
bonds in small denoininations, and Jimmie could not imagine
any better financial investment than a working-class paper;
but Lizzie, alas, could not be made to see it. And then his eye
was caught by an advertisement of an oil-company, published
in a Socialist paper, which lifted it above suspicion. But again
Lizzie blocked the way. She begged her visionary husband
to turn the money over to her; she argued that half of it be-
longed to her anyhow — ^had she not done her part to earn it?
"What part?" Jimmie asked; and she answered that she had
kept quiet— and what more had he done?
Eleeza Betooser wanted that treasure to insure safety for
the children through whatever troubles might come to their
propagandist father. And finally the propagandist father gave
way, and the woman proceeded to secure the money in the an-
cient way of her sex. She took the ten crisp bills and sewed
them in a layer of cloth, and wound the cloth about the ankle
of her right leg, and sewed it there, and put a stocking over it
-to hide it. And that apparatus would stay there — day or night,
winter or summer, it would never part from its owner. She
would be a walking bank, a bank that she knew was safe from
panic or crisis; the feeling of the two hundred dollars about,
her ankle would be communicated to every part of Lizzie —
-warming her heart, delighting her brain, and stimulating her
liver and digestion. .
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JIMMIE HIGGINS FACES THE WAR 109
n
And soon the chances of life caused Jimmie to be glad of
the innate conservatism of the feminine nature. The giant
British ofEensive was drowned in mud and blood on the Somme,
-and the Russian offensive went to pieces before Lemberg; and
meantime John Cutter stowed his barrels of apples in the cellar,
. and got the last of his corn-crop husked, and drove his load of
pumpkins to market; and then one Saturday night, after the
cows had come in, wet and steaming with November rain, he
informed his hired man that he would not need his services
after that month, he would no longer be able to afford "help."
Jimmie stared at him in consternatio'n — ^for he had thought
that he had a permanent job, having learned the work, and hav-
ing heard no serious complaints.
"But," explained Cutter, "the work's all done. Do yon ex-
pect me to pay you to sit round? I'll be glad to take you on
next spring, of course."
"And what'U I do in the meai;itime?" Jimmie glared, and
all his hatred of the villainous profit-system welled up in his
heart. So much food he had helped to raise and store away —
and not a pound of it his! "Say," he remarked, "I know
what you want! Some kind of a trained bear, that'll work all
summer, and go to sleep in winter an' not eat nothin' !"
The little Socialist was all the crosser, because he knew that
his boss had just made a lucky stroke — ^they were running a
spur of > the railroad out to the vast explosives plant they were
constructing in the country, and Cutter had got the price of
his mortgage for a narrow strip of land that was nothing but
wood-lot. Jimmie had seen the trade made, and had put in a
useful word as to the value of that "timber," but now he had no
share in the deal. He must be content with an offer of the
tenant-house for five dollars a month through the winter, and
a job with the railroad-company, grading track.
There came rain and snow and blizzards, but the railroad
construction stopped for nothing. It went on in three shifts,
day and night; for half the world was clamouring for the
means to blow itself up, and the other half must work like the
devil to furnish the means. At least that was the way the
matter presented itself to Jimmie Higgins, who took it as a
personal affront the way this diabolical war kept pursuing him.
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110 JIMMIE HIGGINS
He had fled into the country from it, bringing his little family
to a tenant-house on, an obscure, worn-out farm, several miles
from the nearest town; but here all of a sudden came a gang
of Dagoes with picks and shovels. They lifted up and set to one
side the chicken-house where Lizzie kept her eleven hens and
one rooster, and the pig-sty where one little shoat gobbled up
their table-scraps; and two days later came a huge machine,
driven by steam, creeping on a track, picking up rails and ties
from a car behind it, swinging them round and laying them
in front of it, and then rolling ahead over the bed it had made.
So the railroad just literally walked out into the country, and
before long whole train-loads of cement and sand and corru-
gated iron walls and roofing came rattling and banging past
the Higgins back-door. Day and night this continued; and a
little ways beyond they knew that a two mile square of scrubby
waste was being laid out with roads and tracks and little squat
buildings, set far apart from each other. In a few months the
frightened family would lie awake at night and listen to trains
rattling past, coming out from the explosives plant, piled to the
tops with loads of trinitrotoluol, and such unpronounceable in-
struments of murder and destruction. And this was the fate
which capitalism had handed out to an ardent anti-militarist,
a propagandist of international fraternity!
Ill
Jimmie Higgins went into the Socialist local now and then, '
to pay his dues and to refresh his soul on pacifist speeches.
Just before Christmas the President of the United States wrote
a letter to all the warring nations, pleading with them to end the
strife; intimating that all the belligerents were on a par as to
badness, and stating explicitly that America had nothing to do
with their . struggle. This, of course, brought intense satis-
faction to the members of Local Leesville of the Socialist party;
it was what they had been proclaiming for two years and four
months! They had never expected to have a capitalist presi-
dent, in agreement with them, but when the opportunity came,
they made the most of it; clamouring that the capitalist presi-
dent should go farther — should back up his words by actions.
If the warring nations would not make peace, let America at
least clear her skirts by declaring an embargp, refusing to
furnish them with the means of self-destruction!
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JIMMIE HIGGINS PACES THE WAR 111
But for some reason incomprehensible to Jimmie Higgins,
the capitalist president would not take this further step; and
time moved on, and at the end of January fell a thunder-bolt,
in the shape of a declaration from the German government that
beginning next day it rescinded its agreement to visit and search
steamers, and declared war to the death against all vessels sailing
in barred zones. Jimmie went to a meeting of the local a few
days after that, and found the gathering seething with excite-
ment. The President had appeared before Congress that day
and made a speech calling for war; and the Germans and
Austrians in the local were wild with indignation, shaking their
fists and clamouring against the unthinkable outrage of an
attack upon the Fatherland. There was a new edition of the
"Worker" just out, filled with bitter protests, and the Germans
and the pacifists wanted to pledge the local to a movement for
a general strike of labour throughout the country. Street-
meetings had been resumed — for of course, since the strike in
the Empire had been settled, the police had had no pretext to
prevent them. The extremists now wanted anti-war speakers
on every corner, and anti-war leaflets shoved under every door-
step; they were willing to put up the money and to pledge
their time for these activities.
Lawyer Norwood rose and revealed the split that was now
full-grown in the party. For the United States to lie down
before that irisolent declaration of the German government
would be to imperil everything which a lover of liberty held dear.
It would mean that Britain would be starved out of the war,
and British sea-power shattered — ^that British sea-power upon
which free government, had based itself throughout the world.
Norwood was unable to get any further, for the tempest of jeer-
ing and ridicule that overwhelmed him. "Freedom in Ireland !"
shrieked Comrade Mary Allen. "And in India ! And in
Egypt!" bellowed Comrade Koeln, the glass-blower, whose
mighty lungs had been twenty years preparing for this emer-
gency.
It was hard to stop the laughter — it seemed so funny that
a man who called himself a Socialist should be defending Brit-
ish battleships! But Comrade Gerrity, the chairman, pounded
with his gavel, and insisted that the meeting should give fair
play, that every speaker should be heard in his turn. So Nor-
wood went on. He understood that no government in this
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112 JIMMIE HIGGINS
world was perfect, but some were better than others, and it
was a fact of history, whether or not they chose to admit it,
that such freedom as had already been secured in the world
— in Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and
the United States — ^had rested under the protection of British
battle-ships. If those battle-ships went down, it would mean
that every one of those free communities would begin building"
up a military force many times as strong as they had now.
If the United States did not maintain the established customs
of sea-commerce in the present crisis, it would mean one thing
and one only — that America would spend the next thirty years
devoting her energies to preparing for alife-and-death strug-
gle with German Imperialism. If we were not to fight later,
we must fight now
"All right, you fight!" shouted Comrade Schneider, the
brewer, his purple face more purple than ever before in the
history of Local Leesville.
"I'm going to fight all right," answered the young lawyer.
"This is, my last speech here or anywhere else — I'm leaving
for an officers' training-camp to-morrow. I have come here to
do my duty, to warn you comrades — even though I know it
will be in vain. The time for debate has passed — ^the country
is going into war "
"I'm not going into war !" roared Schneider.
"Be careful," answered the other. "You may find yourself
in before you know it."
And the big brewer laughed to shake the plaster off the
walls. "I'd like to see them send me ! To fight for the British
sea-power ! Ho ! Ho ! Ho !"
IV
It was a stormy speech young Norwood made, but he per-
sisted to the end, so that, as he said, his conscience might be
clear, he might know that he had done what he could to protect
the movement from its greatest blunder. He warned them that
the temper of the country was rising; you could see it rising
hour by hour, and things which had been tolerated in the past
would be tolerated no longer. Democracy would protect its life
— it would show that in a crisis it was as strong as militarism —
"Yes, and turn itself into militarism to do it !" cried Comrade
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JIMMIB HIGGINS FACES THE WAR 113
Mary Allen. The Quaker lady was almost beside herself; she,
more even than the Germans, saw in what was transpiring the
violation of her most sacred convictions. America, her own
country, was giving itself to war, making ready to turn its
resources to the wholesale mutilation of men ! Comrade Mary's
thin face was white; her lips were tight with resolve, but her
feeHngs betrayed themselves by the quivering of her nostrils.
And oh, what a speech she made! Such torrents of furious
hatred in the cause of universal love! Comrade Mary quoted
a Socialist writer who had said that just as gladiatorial com-
bats had continued until Christian monks were willing to throw
themselves into the arena, so war would continue until Social-
ists were willing to throw themselves beneath the hoofs of the
cavalry. And in this Quaker spinster you saw one Socialist
who was ready to go out that very night and throw herself
beneath the hoofs of cavalry, infantry, or artillery, or even of
a police-automobile.
And that was the sentiment of the meeting as a whole.
If America entered the European strife, it would be because
the Socialist organisation had exhausted its means of protest
in vain. They would call meetings, they would distribute
literature, they would voice their convictions on the streets and
in the shops and wherever the people might be reached. They
would have no part in this wicked strife, either now or later;
they would continue in the future, as in the past, to denounce
and, to expose the capitalist politicians and the capitalist news-
papers who caused war and thrived upon war. And in pro-
portion to the intensity of their feelings would be their bitter-
ness and contempt for the few renegades who in this hour of
crisis, this test of manhood and integrity, were deserting the
movement and going to enrol themselves in oflBcers' training-
camps !
And so when Jimmie went home that night he carried with
him an armful of revolutionary literature, which during the
noon-hour he proceeded to distribute among the workers on the
construction- job, which was now inside tiie preserves of the
explosives company. So naturally in the course of the after-
noon he was summoned before the boss and fired; they escorted
him to the limits of the property, and told him that if he ever
returned he would be shot on sight. And then at night he
went up to the cross-roads store and tried to give out his litera-
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114 JIMMIE HIGGINS
ture there, and got into a controversy with some of the cracker-
box loungers, one of whom jumped up and shook his fist in
Jimmie'^ face, shouting, "Get out of here, you dirty little louse !
If you don't stop talking your treason round here, we'll come
down some night and ride you out of the country on a rail!"
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CHAPTER XII
JIMM'IE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT
'T^^p country, it seemed, was hell-bent for war; and Jimmie
■■■ Higgins was hell-bent for martyrdom. If the great mad-
ness were to take possession of America, it would not be without
his having done what he could to prevent. He would stand in
the path of the war-chariot; he would throw himself beneath
the hoofs of the cavalry, and block the road with his dead body.
To which vivid programme there was only one obstacle — or, to be
precise, four obstacles, one large and three small, the large one
being Eleeza Betooser.
Poor Lizzie of course had no real comprehension of the
world-forces against which her husband was contending; to
Lizzie, life consisted of three babies, whom it was her duty
to feed and protect, and a husband, who was her instrument
for carrying out this duty. The world outside of these was
to her a vague and shadowy place, full of vague and shadowy
terrors. Somewhere up in the sky was a holy virgin who would
help when properly appealed to, but Lizzie was handicapped
in appealing to this virgin by the fact that her husband despised
the holy one, and would cast insulting doubts upon her virtue.
Now the shadowy terrors of this vast outside world were
moving to ends of their own, and her poor, puny husband per-
sisted in putting himself in their way. He had got turned
out of his job, for the fourth or fifth time since Lizzie had
known him, and he was in imminent danger of getting into
jail, or into a coat of tar and feathers. As the controversy
grew hotter and the peril greater, Lizzie came to a condition
which might have been diagnosed as chronic impending hysteria.
Her eyes were red from secret weeping, and at the slightest
provocation she would burst into floods of tears and throw her-
self into her husband's arms. This would start ofE Jimmie
Junior, and the little ones, who always took their cue from him.
115
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116 JIMMIE HIGGINS
And Jimmie Senior would stand perplexed and helpless. Here
was a new aspect of the heroic life, not dealt withi in the books.
He wondered — ^had there ever in history been such a thing as a
married martyr? If so, what had this martyr done with his
family?
Jimmie would try to explain to his distressed spoiise. It
was a question of saving a hundred million people from the
horrors of war; what did one man matter, in comparison with
that? But alas, the argument did not carry at all, the simple
truth being that the one man mattered more to Lizzie than all
thei other ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine
thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. And besides, what
could the one man do ? One poor, obscure, helpless workingman
out of a job
"But it's the organisation !" he cried. "It's all of us to-
gether — it's the party ! ■ We promised to stand together, so we
got to do it ! If I drop out, I'm a coward, a traitor ! We must
make the workers understand "
"But you can't!" cried Lizzie.
"But we're doin' it ! Come see !"
"And what can they do ?"
Which of course started Jimmie off on a propaganda speech.
What could the workers do ? Say rather, what could they not
do! How could any war be fought without the workers? If
only they would stand together, if they would rise against their
capitalist oppressors
"But they won't!" sobbed the woman. "They got no use
for you at all! You go an' get fired — or you get your face
beat in, like poor Bill Murray "
"But is that any worse than goin' to war?"
"You ain't got to go to war!"
"Who says I ain't ? I got to go, if the country goes. They'll
drag me off an' make me ! If I refuse they'll shoot me ! Ain't
they doin' that in England an' France an' Eoosia an' all them
countries?" '
"But will they do it here?" cried Lizzie, aghast.
"Sure they will ! Thaf s exactly what they're gettin' ready,
for — ^what we're fightin' to stop them from! You don't know
what's goin' on in this country — listen here !"
And Jimmie hauled out the last issue of the "Worker,"
which quoted speeches made in Congress, calling for conscrip-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT 117
tion, declaring that such a measure was an essential war-step.
"Don't you see what they're up to ? An' if we're goin' to stop
them, we gotta act now, before it's too late. Hadn't I just as
good go to jail here in Leesville as be shipped over to Europe to
be shot — or maybe drowned by a submarine on the way?"
And thus a new terror was introduced into Lizzie's life —
robbing her of sleep for many a night thereafter, planting in
her mother-heart for the first time the idea that she might be
concerned in the world-war. "What'd become of the babies?"
she wailed; and Jimmie answered: Whose business was it to
bother about working-class babies, imder the hellish capitalist
system?
II
So Jimmie had his way for a bit — he went into Leesville
and helped distribute literature, and held the torch at street-
meetings, where some people hooted at them and others defended
them, and the police had to interfere to prevent a riot. It was at
this time that a militant majority was trying to drive through
the Senate a declaration of war against Germany, and a hand-
ful of pacifists blocked the way in the closing hours of the
session, thus causing a delay of several weeks. How you re-
garded this action depended upon your point of view. The
President denounced them as "wilful men," and the Wall Street
newspapers apparently wanted them lynched; whereas Jimmie
and his fellows in the local hailed them as heroes and friends
of mankind. The Socialists argued that the President had
been re-elected, only four months before, by pacifist votes, and
upon a pacifist platform ; and now he was sweeping the country
into war, and denouncing those who stood upon his former
convictions !
On top of this came another event which set Jimmie almost
beside himself with excitement. For three days all news from
Petrograd was cut off; and then came a repoi:t, electrifying
the world — the Tsar had been overthrown, the Eussian people
were free! Jimmie could hardly believe his eyes; he went in
to the meeting of the local three nights later, to find the com-
rades celebrating as if the world were theirs. Here was the
thing they had been preaching, day in and day out, all these
weary years, amid ridicule, hatred and persecution; here was
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118 JIMMIB HIGGINS
the Social Revolution, knocking at the gates of the world ! It
would spread to Austria and Germany, to Italy, France, Eng-
land — and so to Leesville ! Everywhere the people would come
into their own, and war and tyranny would vanish like a hate-
ful nightmare!
Speaker after speaker got up to proclaim this glorious future ;
they sang the MarseiEaise and the Internationale, > and the
Eussians who were present clasped one another in their arms,
with tears running down their cheeks. It was voted that they
must hold a mass-meeting immediately, to explain this epoeh-
niaking event to the people of the city; also they must stand
more firmly than ever by their programme of opposition to
war. Now, with Social Eevolution knocking at the gates of
the world, what was the use of America's going in for militarism ?
So Jimmie set to work with redoubled fervour, giving all
his time to agitation. He had apparently no chance of getting
a job, and for the moment he gave up trying. The keeper of
the cross-roads store, being down on him because of his ideas,
refused him any more credit; and so poor Lizzie was driven to
do what she had vowed never to do— take off the stocking from
her right leg, and unsew the bandage from her ankle, and
extract one of the ten precious twenty dollar bills. Their
bright yellow was considerably faded now, their beautiful crisp-
ness gone entirely; but the store-keeper made no kick on that •
account — he returned the change, and incidentally took occasion
to give her a friendly warning concerning her husband's reck-
less talk. There was trouble coming to him, and his wife had
better shut him up before it was too late. So poor Lizzie ceased
being a pacifist, and went home to have more hysterics on her
husband's bosom.
Ill
Being unable to hold him back, she sent word by the mail-
carrier to old Peter Drew to come up ajid help ; the old farmer
hitched up his bony mare and drove to see them, and for a
couple of hours talked America while Jimmie talked Rus-
sia. Was America to lie down before the Kaiser? Jimmie
would answer that they were going to bring down the Kaiser
in the same way they had brought down the Tsar. The
workers of Russia having shown the way, nevermore would the
workers of any nation bow to the yoke of slavery. Yes, even
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT 119
in the so-called republics, such as France, which was ruled by
bankers, and America, which was ruled by Wall Street — even
here, the workers would read the lesson of revolt !
"But in America the people can get anything they want!"
cried the bewildered old man. "They only have to vote "
"Vote?" snarled Jimmie. "An' have their votes thrown out
by some rotten political gang, like they got here in Leesville?
Don't talk to me about votin' — ^they told me I'd moved into a
new district an' lost my vote — lost it because I lost my job!
So it's old man Granitch has the say whether I can vote or
not! You'll find the same thing true of two-thirds of the
men in the Empire Shops — half the unskilled men in the coun-
try got no votes, because they got no home, no nothin'."
"But," argued the old soldier, "how will you run your new
working-class government, if not by votes?"
"Sure, we'll run it by votes," Jimmie answered — "but first
we'll turn out the capitalists; they won't have the money to
buy political machines ; they won't own the newspapers an' print
lies about us. Look at this Leesville 'Herald' right now — just
plain downright lies they print — ^we can't get any truth at all
to the people."
And so it went. It was of no use for the old man to plead
for the "country"; to Jimmie the "country" had let itself be
lost, suppressed, taken over by the capitalists, the "plutes."
Jimmie's sense of loyalty was not to his country, but to his
class, which had been exploited, hounded, driven from pillar
to post. In past times the government had allowed itself to
be used by corporations; so now it was in vain that the Presi-
dent made appeals for justice and democracy, using the beautiful
language of idealism. Jimmie did not believe that he meant
it; or anyhow. Wall Street would see that nothing came of
his promises. The "plutes" would take his words and twist
them into whatever sense they Wished; and meantime they went
on pouring out abuse on Jimmie Higgins — ^throwing the same
old mud into his" eyes, blinding him with the same old hatred.
So there was no way for an old soldier and patriot to break
through the armour of Jimmie's prejudice.
IV
Next day was to be the great mass-meeting in celebration of
the Eussian revolution; and would you believe it, Lizzie was
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120 JIMMIB HIGGINS
hoping to persuade Jimmie to stay away; she had brought Mr.
Drew to help persuade him ! Poor Lizzie had visions of every-
body in the hall being carted off to jail, of Jimmie getting up
and shouting something, causing the police to fall on him and
beat in his skull with their clubs. It was in vain he declared
that he was going to do nothing more romantic than sell litera-
ture and act as usher. She clasped him in her arms, weeping
copiously, and when he was still obdurate, she declared that
she would go with him. She would try to persuade Mrs. Drew
to take care of the babies for one night.
Old Peter Drew answered that he would be interested to
attend the meeting himself. How would it do for him to come
for Lizzie and the little ones, and leave the latter at his home,
and then drive with Lizzie to the, meeting? They could meet
Jimmie at the Opera-house, where he would be spending the
day decorating. Then after the meeting they could all drive
back together. Fine! said Jimmie, who had visions of the
old soldier becoming infected with revolutionary fever.
But alas, it did not work out that way. To Jimmie's con-
sternation the ,old man turned up at the Opera-house in a faded
blue uniform with brass buttons all over it ! Everybody «tared,
of course; and they stared all the harder becatise they saw this
military personage in company with Comrade Higgins. The
old boy gazed about at the swarms of people, many of them
with red buttons, the women with red ribbons or sashes; he
gazed at the decorations — the huge flag and the long red stream-
ers, the banner of the Karl Marx Verein, and the banner of the
jypsels, or Young Peoples' Socialist League of Leesville, and
the banner of the Machinists' Union, Local 4717, and of the
Carpenters' Union, District 529, and of the Workers' Co-opera-
tive Society. He turned to Jimmie and said, "Where's the
American flag?"
The Liederkranz sang the Marseillaise, and after the audi-
ence had cheered and waved red handkerchiefs and shouted
itself hoarse, Comrade Gerrity, the chairman, made a little
speech. For many years all Socialists had been accustomed to
employ a metaphor by which to describe conditions in their
country, and now they would no longer be able to use it, for
Eussia was free, and America would follow her example when
she had the sense. He introduced Comrade Pavel Michaelo-
vitch, who had come all the way from New York to tell them
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT 121
the meaning of the greatest event of history. Comrade Pavel,
a slender, frail, scholarly-looking man with a black beard and
black-rimmed spectacles, said a few words in Russian, and
then he talked for an hour in broken English, explaining how
the Russians had won their way to freedom, and now would use
it to set free the rest of the proletariat. And then came Com-
rade Schultze, of the Carpet Weavers' Union, assuring them
that there was no need to go to war with Germany, because
the German workers had been shown the way to freedom, and
would follow very soon ; Schultze knew, because his brother was
editor of a Socialist paper in Leipzig, and he had inside in-
formation as to what was going on in the Fatherland.
Then Comrade Smith, the editor of the "Worker," was intro-
duced, and the trouble began. The young editor wasted no
time in preliminaries ; he was an international revolutionist, and
no capitalist government was going to draft him for its bloody
knaveries. Never would he be led out to murder his fellow-
workers, whether in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria or Turkey;
the masters of Wall Street would find that when they set out to
drive American freemen to the slaughter-pen, they had made
the mistake of their greedy lives. "Understand me," declared
Comrade Smith — though there seemed so far to have been
nothing in which any one could possibly have misimderstood
him — "understand me, I am no pacifist, I am not opposed to
war — it is merely that I purpose to choose the war in which I
fight. If they try to put a gun into my hands, I shall not
refuse to take it — ^not much, for I and my fellow wage-slaves
have long wished for guns! But I shall use my own judgment
as to where I aim that gun — whether at enemies in front of me,
or at enemies behind me — ^whether at my brothers, the working-
men of Germany, or at my oppressors, the exploiters of Wall
Street, their newspaper lackeys and military martinets !"
The sentences of this speech came like the blows of a ham-
mer, and they struck forth a clamour of applause from the
audience. But suddenly the cheering crowd became aware that
something out of the ordinary was happening. An aged, white-
whiskered man clad in a faded blue uniform had risen from
his seat in the middle of the hall and was shouting and waving
his arms. People near him were trying to pull him down into
his seat, but he would not be squelched, he went on shouting;
and the audience in part fell silent out of curiosity. "Shame !
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122 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Shame!" they heard him cry. "Shame upon you!" And he
pointed a trembling finger at the orator, declaring, "You are
talking treason, young man!"
"Sit down !" shrieked the crowd. "Shut up !"
But the old man turned upon them. "Are there no Ameri-
cans at all in this audience? Will you listen to this shameless
traitor without one word?"
People caught him by the coat-tails, men shook their fists
at him; at the other side pf the hall "Wild Bill" leaped up on
a chair, shrieking: "Cut his throat, the old geezer!"
Two policemen came running down the aisle, and the "old
geezer" appealed to them: "What are you here for, if not to
protect the flag and the honour of America ?" But the police-
men insisted that he stop interrupting the meeting, and so the
old man turned and stalked out from the hall. But he did not
go until he had turned once more and shaken his fist at the
crowd, yelling in his cracked voice, "Traitors ! Traitors !"
Poor Jimmie remained in his seat, overwhelmed. That he,
the most devoted of workers for Socialism, should have been
the cause of such a disgraceful scene — ^bringing to this revolu-
tionary meeting a man in the uniform of a killer of the work-
ing-class ! He could not stay and face the comrades ; before the
speaking had finished he gave Lizzie a nudge, and the two got
up and stole out, dodging every one they knew.
Outside they stood in perplexity. They thought, of course,
that the old man would have driven away without them; they
pictured the long walk from the trolley-line in the darkness and
mud — and with Lizzie dressed in her only Sunday-go-to-meeting !
But when they went to the place where Mr. Drew had left his
buggy, to their surprise they found him patiently waiting for
them. Seeing them hesitate, he said, "Come ! Get in !" They
were much embarrassed, but obeyed, and the old mare started
her amble towards home.
They rode for a long time in silence. Finally Jimmie
could not stand it, and began, "I'm so sorry, Mr. Drew. You
don't understand " But the old man cut him off : "There's
no use you and me tryin' to talk, young man." So they rode
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS A PATRIOT 123
the rest of the way without a sound — except that once Jimmie
imagined he heard Lizzie sobbing to herself.
Jimmie really felt terribly about it, for he had for this old
soldier a deep respect, even an affection. Mr. Drew had made
his impression not so much by his arguments, which Jimmie
considered sixty years out of date, as by his personality. Here
was one patriot who was straight ! What a pity that he could
not understand the revolutionary point of view! What a pity
that he had to be made angry ! It was one more of the horrors
of war, which tore friends apart, and set them to disputing
and hating one another.
At least, that was the way it seemed to Jimmie that night,
while he was still fuU of the speeches he had heard. But at
other times doubts assailed him — for of course a man cannot
defy and combat a whole community without sometimes being
led to wonder whether the community may not have some right
on its side. Jimmie would hear of things the Germans had
done in the war; they were such dirty fighters, they went out
of their way to do such utterly revolting and useless, almost
insane things! They made it so needlessly hard for any one
who tried to defend them to think of them even as human
beings. Jimmie would argue that he did not mean to help the
Germans; he would resent bitterly the charges of the Leesville
newspapers that he was a German agent and a traitor; but he
could not get away from the uncomfortable fact that the things
he was doing did have a tendency to further German, interests,
at least for a time.
When that was pointed out to him by some patriot in a con-
troversy, his answer would be that he was appealing to the
German Socialists to revolt against their military leaders; but
then the patriot would begin to find fault with the German
Socialists, declaring that they were much better Germans than
Socialists, and citing utterances and actions to prove it. One
German Socialist had stood up in the Eeichstag and declared
that the Germans had two ways of fighting — their armies over-
came their enemies in the field, while their Socialists under-
mined the morale of the workers in enemy countries. When
that passage was read to Jimmie, he answered that it was a
lie; no such speech had ever been made by a Socialist. He had
no way of proving it was a lie, of course; he just knew it!
But then, when he went away and thought it over, he began to
9
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124 JIMMIE HIGGINS
wonder; suppose it were true! Suppose the German workers
had been so drilled and schooled in childhood that even those
who called themselves revolutionists were patriots at heart!
Jimmie would begin to piece this and that together — ^things
he had heard or read. Certainly these German Socialists were
not displaying any great boldness in fighting their government !
The answer was that they could not oppose their govern-
ment, because they would be put in jail. But that was a pretty
poor answer; it was their business to go to jail^ — ^if not, what
right had they to expect Jimmie Higgins to go here in America?
Jimmie presented this problem to Comrade Meissner, who an-
swered that if Jimmie would go first, then doubtless the Ger-
man comrades would foUow. But Jimmie could not see why
he should be first; and when they tried to clear up the reason,
it developed that down in his heart Jimmie had begun to believe
that Germany was more to blame for the war than America.
And not merely would Comrade Meissner not admit that, but
he became excited and vehement, trying to convince Jimmie that
the other capitalist governments of the world were the cause of
the war — Germany was only defending herself against them!
So there they were, involved in a controversy, just like any two
non-revolutionary people! Eepeating over the same arguments
which had gone on in the local between Norwood, the lawyer,
and Schneider, the brewer; only this time Jimmie was taking
the side of Norwood ! Jimmie found himself face to face with
the disconcerting fact that his devoted friend Meissner was a
G«rman — and therefore in some subtle way different from
him, imable to see things as he did!
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CHAPTER XIII
JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE
■fXTAE or no war, the soil had to be ploughed and seed sown ;
'^' so John Cutter came to his tenant and proposed that he
should resume his job as farm-hand. Only he must agree to
shut up about the war, for while Cutter himself was not a
rabid patriot, he would take no chances of having his tenant-
house burned down some night. So there was another discus-
sion in the Higgins family. Lizzie remembered how during the
previous summer Jimmie had worked from dawn till dark, and
been too tired even to read Socialist papers, to say nothing of
carrying on propaganda: which seemed to the distracted wife
of a propagandist the most desirable condition possible! Poor
Eleeza Betooser — twice again she had been compelled to take
down the stocking from her right leg, and unsew the bandage
round her ankle, and extract another of those precious yellow
twenty dollar bills; there were only seven of them left now,
and each of them was more valuable to Lizzie than her eye-
teeth.
Jimmie finally agreed that he would gag himself, so far as
concerned this country-side. What was the use of trying to
teach anything to these barnyard boobs? They wanted war —
let them go to war, and be blown to bits or poisoned in the
trenches! If Jimmie had propaganding to do, he would do it
in the city, where the workingmen had brahis, and knew who
their enemies were. So once more Jimmie harnessed up John
Cutter's horses to the plough, and went out into John Cutter's
field to raise another crop of corn for a man whom he hated.
All day he guided the plough or the harrow, and at night he fed
and cared for the horses and the cows, and then he came home
and ate his supper, listening to the rattling of the long f reight-
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126 JIMMIE HIGGINS
train that went through his back yard, carrying materials for
the making of TNT.
For the great explosives plant was now working day and
night, keeping the war in Jimmie's thoughts all the time,
whether he would or not. In the midnight hours the trains of
finished materials went out, making Jimmie's windows rattle
with their rumble and clatter, and bearing his fancies away to
the battle-line across the seas, where men were soon to be blown
to pieces with the contents of these cars. One night something
went wrong on the track, and the train stopped in his back yard,
and in the morning he saw the cars, painted black, with the
word "Danger" in ilaming red letters. On top of the cars
walked a man with a club in his hand and a bulge on his hip,
keeping guard.
It appeared that some one had torn up a rail in the night,
evidently for the purpose of wrecking the train; so there came
a detective to Jimmie, while he was working in the field, to
cross-question him. They had Jimmie's record, and suspected
him of knowing more than he would tell. "Aw, go to hell !"
ezelaimed the irate Socialist. "D'you suppose, if I'd wanted
to smash anything, I'd 'a done it on the place where I work?"
And then, when he went home to dinner, he foimd that they
had been after Lizzie, and had frightened her out of her wits.
They had threatened to turn them out of their home; Jimmie
saw himself hounded here and there by this accursed war —
until it finished by seizing him and dragging him to the
trenches !
n
The new Congress had met, and declared a state of war
with Germany, and the whole country was rushing into arms.
Men were enlisting by hundreds of thousands; but that was
not enough for the militarists — ^they wanted a conscription-law,
so that every man might be compelled to go. If they were so
sure of themselves and their wonderful war, why weren't they
satisfied to let those fight it who wanted to ? — So argued the
rebellious Jimmie and his anti-militarist associates. But no!
the militarists knew perfectly well that the bulk of the people
did not want to fight, so they proposed to make them fight.
Every energy of the Socialist movement was now concentrated
on the blocking of this conscription scheme.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE 127
Local Leesville hired the Opera-house again, organising a
mass-meeting of protest, and the capitalist papers of the city
began clamouring against this meeting. Was the patriotism
and loyalty of Leesville to be affronted by another gathering of
sedition and treason? The "Herald" told all over again the
story of the gallant old civH war veteran who had risen in his
seat and shouted his protest against the incitements of "Jack"
Smith, the notorious "red" editor. The "Herald" printed a
second time the picture of the gallant old veteran in his faded
blue uniform, and the list of battles in which he had fought,
from the first Bull Run to the last siege of Richmond. Some
farmer passing by handed a copy of this paper to Lizzie, adding
that if there was any more treason-talk in this locality there
was going to be a lynching-bee. So Jimmie found his wife in
tears again. She was absolutely determined that he should not
gO to that meeting. For three days she wept and argued with
him, and for a part of three nights.
It would have been comical if it had not been so tragic. Jim-
mie would use the old argument, that if he did not succeed in
stopping the war, he would be dragged into the trenches and
killed. So, of course, Lizzie would become a pacifist at once.
What right had the war to take Jinmiie from her ? The little
Jimmies had a right to their father ! All children had a right
to their fathers! But then, after Lizzie had expressed these
tearful convictions, Jimmie would say. All right, then he must
go to that meeting, he must do what he could to prevent the
war. And poor Lizzie would find herself suddenly confronting
the terrors of the police with their clubs and the patriots with
their buckets of tar and bags of feathers! No, Jimmie must
not carry on any propaganda, Jimmie must not go to the meet-
ing ! Poor Jimmie would try to pin her down : which way did
she want him killed, by the Germans, or by the police and the
mobs? But Lizzie did not want him killed either way! She
wanted him to go on living!
Jimmie would try to arrange a compromise for the present.
He would go to the meeting, but he would promise not to say
a word. But that did not console Lizzie — she knew that if
anything happened, her man would get into it. No, if he were
determined to go, she would go too — even if they had to load
the three babies into the perambulator, and push them two or
three miles to the trolley ! If Jimmie tried to make a speech,
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Iz8 JIMMIB HIGGINS
she would hang onto his coat-tails, she would clasp her hands
over his mouth, she would throw herself between him and the
clubs of the policemen!
So matters stood, when on the afternoon before the meeting
there came a heavy rain, and the road to the trolley was ren-
dered impossible for a triple-loaded baby-carriage. So there
were more hysterifcs in the family; Jimmie took his wife's hand
in his and solemnly swore to her that she might trust him to
go to this meeting, he would not do anything that could by any
possibility get him into trouble. He would not try to make
a speech, he would not get up and shout — ^no matter what hap-
pened, he would not say a word! He woul^ merely sell
pamphlets, and show people to their seats, as he had done at a
hundred meetings before. To make sure of his immunity, he
would even leave off the red badge which he was accustomed
to display on Socialist occasions! By these pledges repeated
over and over, he finally succeeded in pacifying his weeping
«pouBe, and gently removed her clutch on his coat-tails, and
departed, waving his hand to her and the kids.
The last thing he saw through the rain was Jimmie Junior,
■flourishing a red handkerchief which Lizzie at the last moment
had extracted from her husband's pocket. The last sound he
heard was Jimmie Junior's voice, shouting: "You be good now!
You shut up !" Jimmie went off, thinking about this little tike ;
he was five years old, and growing so that you could notice the
difference over night. He had big black eyes like his mother,
and a grin full of all the mischief in the world. The things
he knew and the questions he asked ! Jimmie and Lizzie never
got tired of talking about them; Jimmie recalled them one
by one, as he trudged through the mud — and, as always, he set
his lips and clenched his hands, and took up anew the task of
making the world a fit place for a workingman's child to grow
up in!
Ill
The principal orator of the evening was a young college
professor who had been turned out of his job for taking the
side of the working-class in his public utterances, and who was
therefore a hero to Jimmie Higgins. This young man had the
facts of the war at his finger tips; he made you see it as a
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE 121
gigantic conspiracy of capitalists the world over to complete
their grip on the raw materials of wealth, and on the bodies and
souls of the workers. He bitterly denounced those who had
forced the country into the war; he denounced the Wall Street
speculators and fcianciers who had made their billions already,
and would be making their tens of biUions. He denounced the
plan to force men to fight who did not wish to fight, and his
every sentence was followed by a burst of applause from the
throng which packed the Opera-house. If you judged by this
meeting, you would conclude that America was on the verge
of a revolution against the war.
The young professor sat down, wiping the perspiration from
his pale forehead; and then the liederkranz sang again — only
it was not called the Liederkranz now, it had become known as
the "Workers' Singing Society," out of deference to local preju-
dice. Then arose Comrade Smith, editor of the "Worker," and
announced that after the collection the orator would answer
questions; then Comrade Smitji launched into a speech of his
own, to the effect that something definite ought to be done by
the workers of Leesville to make clear their opposition to being
dragged into war. For his part he wished to say that he would
not yield one inch to the war-clamour — he was on record as
refusing to be drafted in any capitalist war, and he was ready
to join with others to agree that they would not be drafted. The
time was short — ^if anything were to be done, they must act
at once —
And then suddenly came an interruption — this time not from
an old soldier, but from a sergeant of police who had been stand-
ing at one side of the stage, and who now stepped forward,
announcing, "This meeting is closed."
"What?" shouted the orator.
"This meeting is closed," repeated the other. "And you,
young man, are under arrest."
There was a howl from the audience, and suddenly from
the pit in front of the stage, whence ordinarily the orchestra
dispensed sweet music, there leaped a line of blue-uniformed
men, distributing themselves between the public and the speaker.
At the same time down the centre aisle came a dozen soldiers
marching, with guns in their hands and bayonets fixed.
"This is an outrage!" shouted Comrade Smith.
"Not another word!" commanded the police ofiBcial; and
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130 JIMMIE HIGGINS
two policemen who had followed him grabbed the orator by each
arm and started to lead him off the stage.
Comrade Gerrity leaped to the front of the platform. "I
denounce this proceeding!" he shouted. "We are holding an
orderly meeting here "
A policeman laid hold of him. "You are under arrest."
Then came Comrade Mabel Smith, sister of the editor of the
"Worker." "For shame! For shame!" she cried. And then,
to a policeman, "No, I will not be silent! I protest in the
name of free speech ! I declare " And when the policeman
seized her by the arm, she continued to shout at the top of
her lungs, driving the crowd to frenzy.
There were disturbances all over the audience. Mrs. Ger-
rity, wife of the organiser, sprang up in her seat and began to
protest. It happened that Jimmie Higgins was in the aisle
not far from her, and his heart leaped with strange, half-for-
gotten emotions as he saw this trim little figure, with the jaimty
hat and the turkey-feather stuck on one side. Comrade Evelyn
Baskerville, of Greenwich Village, she of the fluffy brown hair
and the pert little dimples and the bold and terrifying ideas,
she who had so ploughed up the soul of Jimmie Higgins and
almost broken up the Higgins home — here she was, employing
a new variety of coquetry, by which she compelled three soldiers
with rifles and bayonets to devote their exclusive attention to
her!
And then Comrade Mary Allen, the Quaker lady, who be-
lieved in moral force applied through the ear-drums. She stood
in the aisle with her armful of pamphlets and her red sash
over her shoulder, proclaiming, "In the name of liberty and
fair play I protest against this outrage! I will not see my
country dragged into war without asserting my right of protest!
I stand here, in what is supposed to be a Christian city; I
speak in the name of the Prince of Peace " and so on, quite
a little speech, while several embarrassed young men in khaki
were trying to find out how to hold their rifles and a shouting
Quakeress at the same time.
And then Comrade Schneider, the brewer. He had been
up on the stage with the singers, and now got somehow to the
front. "Haf We got no rights in America left?" he shouted.
"Do we in this audience "
"Shut up, you Hun!" roared some one in the front of the
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. JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE 131
crowd, and three policemen at once leaped for Comrade
Schneider, and grabbed him by the collar, twisting so hard
that the German's face, always purple when he was excited,
took on a dark and deadly hue.
Poor Jimmie Higgins ! He stood there with his armful of
"War, What For?" — trembling with excitement, itching in
every nerve and sinew to leap into this conflict, to make his
voice heard above the uproar, to play his part as a man — or
even as a Comrade Mabel Smith, or a Comrade Mary Allen, or
a Comrade Mrs. Gerrity, nee Baskerville. But he was helpless,
speechless — boimd hand and foot by those solemn pledges he
had given to Eleeza Betooser, the mother of babies.
He looked about, and near him in the aisle he saw another
man, also boimd hand and foot — bound by the memory of the
smash in the face which had broken his nose and knocked out
three of his front teeth! "Wild Bill" saw a policeman watch-
ing him now, eager for another pretext to leap on him and pound
him; so he was silent, like Jimmie. The two of them had to
stand there and see the fundamental constitutional rights of
American citizens set at naught, to see liberty trampled in the
dust beneath the boots of a brutal soldiery, to see justice
strangled and raped in the innermost shrine of her temple. —
At least, that was what you had seen if you read the Leesville
"Worker" ; if on the other hand you read the "Herald" — which
nine out of ten people did — ^then you learned that the forces
of decency and order had at last prevailed in Leesville, the
propaganda of the Hun was stifled forever, the mouthers of
sedition had felt the heavy hand of public indignation.
IV
Outside, a crowd gathered to jeer while the prisoners were
loaded into the patrol-wagon ; but the police drove them away,
keeping everybody moving, and breaking up several attempts at
street-oratory. Jimmie found himself with half a dozen other
comrades, wandering aimlessly down Main Street, talking over
and over what had happened, each explaining why and how he
had not shared the crown of martyrdom. Some had shouted as
loud as the rest, but had been missed by the police; some had
thought it wiser to run away and live to shout another day;
some wanted to start that very night to print a leaflet and call
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132 JIMMIB HIGGINS
another mass-meeting. They adjourned to Tom's "Buffeteria"
to talk things over; they took possession of a couple of tables,
and got their due quotas of coffee and sandwiches, or pie and
milk, and had just got fairly started on the question of raising
bail without the help of Comrade Dr. Service — ^when suddenly
something happened which drove all thoughts of the meeting
out of their minds.
It was like a gigantic blow, striking the whole world at
once ; a cosmic convulsion, quite indescribable. The air became
suddenly a living thing, which leaped against your face; the
windows of the little eating-place flew inward in a shower of
glass, and the walls and tables shook as if with palsy. The
sound of it all was a vast, all-pervasive sound, at once far off
and near, tailing away in the clatter and crash of innumerable
panes of glass falling from innumerable windows. Then came
silence, a sinister, frightful silence, it seemed; men stared at
one another, crying, "My God! What's that?" The answer
seemed to dawn upon every one at once: "The powder-plant!"
Yes, that must be it, beyond doubt. For months they had
been talking about it and thinking about it, speculating as to
the probabilities and the consequences. And now it had hap-
pened. Suddenly one of the company gave a cry, and they
turned and stared at his white face, and realised the terror that
clutched his heart. Comrade Higgins, whose home was so near
the place of peril!
"Gee, fellers, I gotta go!" he gasped; and several of the
comrades jumped up and ran with him into the street. If
there was a single pane of glass left intact in Leesville, you
woiUd not have thought it as you trod those side-walks.
If Jimmie had been trained in efficiency, and accustomed to
spending money more freely, he might perhaps have found out
something by the telej^hone or by inquiry at the newspaper-
offices ; but the one thing he thought of was to take the trolley
and get to his home. The comrades ran with him, speculating
with eager excitement, trying to reassure him — it could be
nothing worse than some glass and some dishes smashed. Some
had thought of going all the way with him, but they remembered
they would be too late for the last trolley back, and they had
their jobs in the morning. So they put him on the car and
bade him good-bye.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE 133
The trolley was packed with people going out to see what
had happened, so Jimmie had plenty of company and conversa-
tion on the way. But when he came to his stop, he got oflE
and walked alone, for the others were going to the explosives
plant, and they rode a mile or so farther on the car.
Never would Jimmie forget that journey — ^that walk of
nightmares. The road was pitch-dark, and before he had gone
more than half the distance, he stumbled over something, and
fell head-foremost. He got up, and groped, and discovered that
it was a tree, lying prone across the road. He searched his
mind, and remembered a great dead tree that stood at that
spot. Could the explosion have knocked it down ?
He went on, feeling his way more cautiously, yet goaded to
greater speed by his fears. A little way farther was a farm-
house, and he went into the yard and shouted, but got no reply.
The yard was covered with shingles, apparently blown from the
roof. He went on, more frightened than ever.
He came to a turn in the road which he knew was less than
half a mile from his home; and here there were several horses
and wagons tied, but no one to answer his calls. The road
passed through a wood; but apparently there was no road any
more — the trees had been picked up bodily and thrown across
it. Jimmie had to grope this way and that, and he ran a piece
of broken branch into his cheek, and by that time was almost
ready to cry with fright. He knew that his home was two miles
from the explosives plant, and he could not conceive how an
explosion could have done such damage at such a distance.
He saw a lantern ahead, bobbing this way and that, and he
shouted louder than ever, and finally succeeded in persuading
the bearer of the lantern to wait for him. It proved to be a
farmer who lived some ways back ; he knew no more than Jimmie
did, and they made their way together. Beyond the woods, the
road was littered with loose dirt, bushes, bits of fence and
rubbish, burned black. "It must have been near here," de-
clared the man, and added words which caused Jimmie's heart
almost to stand still, "It must have been on the railroad-track !"
They came to a little rise, from which in day-time the line
of the railroad was visible. They saw lanterns, many of them,
moving here and there like a swarm of fire-flies. "Come this
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134 JIMMIE HIGGINS
way," Jimmie begged of the farmer, and ran toward his home.
The road was buried under masses of earth, as if thousands of
steam-shovels had emptied their contents on it. When they
came to where the fence of Jimmie's house ought to have been,
they found no fence, but a slide of loose earth that had never
been there before. Where the apple-tree had been there was
nothing; where the lawn had been there was a pitch down a hill,
and where the house had been was a huge valley, seeming in the
darkness a bottomless abyss !
VI
Jimmie was distracted. He grabbed the lantern from the
other man, and ran this way and that, looking for some of the
familiar land-marks of his home — the chicken-house, the pig-
sty, the back fence with the broken elm tree in the corner, the
railroad beyond. He could not believe that he had come to the
place at all — ^he could not credit the reality of such night-mare
sights as his eyes reported to him. He rushed about, stumbling
over mountains of upheaved brown dirt, sliding down into
craters that were filled with a strange penetrating odour which
caused his eyes to smart; and then clambering out again and
running after men with lanterns, shouting questions at them
and not waiting for an answer. It seemed to him that if he
ran just a little farther he must surely find the house and the
other things he was looking for; but he found nothing but
more craters and more mountains of dirt; and little by little
the horrible truth became clear to him, that all the way down
the railroad-track, as far as he could see or run, this gigantic
trough extended, a valley of raw dirt with mountains on each
side, crowned here and there with wheels and axles and iron
trucks of blown-up freight-cars, and filled in the bottom with
the deadly fumes of trinitrotoluol !
Jimmie cried out to the men and women with lanterns, ask-
ing had they seen his wife and babies. But no one had seen
them — ^no one had notified them of the impending explosion!
Jimmie was sobbing, calling out distractedly; he ran out to the
road, and after much searching found a charred tree-stump
which gave him his precise bearings, so that he knew where
the house should have been, and could assure himself that it
was precisely where that frightful slope started down into the
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JIMMIB HIGGINS DODGES TROUBLE 135
abyss. He slid around on this slope, calling aloud, as if he
expected the spirits of his loved ones might have remained
there, defying all the power of suddenly expanding gases. He
ran back across the road and called, as if they might have fled
that vi^ay.
At last he ran into Mr. Drew; old Mr. Drew, who a couple
of weeks before had taken Eleeza Betooser and her three little
ones driving in his buggy! That memory was the nearest
Jimmie could get to them, and so he clutched the old soldier's
arm, and held on to it, weeping like a little child.
The old man tried to draw him away, to get him to his home.
But Jimmie must stay on the spot, he was held by a spell of
horror. He wandered about, dragging Mr. Drew with him,
pleading with people to no purpose; now and then he would
break out with curses against war-makers, and especially those
who made explosives and transported them in freight-trains
through other men's back yards. For once people heard him
without threats of lynching.
So on through this night of anguish. Jimmie lost old man
Drew in the darkness, and was all alone when the dawn came,
and he could see the sweep of desolation about him, and the
awe-stricken faces of the spectators. Soon afterwards came the
climax. He saw a crowd gathered, and as he came up, this
crowd parted for him. Nobody seemed to want to speak, but
they all watched, as if curious to see what he would do. One
of the men bore a burden, wrapped in a horse-blanket ; Jimmie
gazed, and after a moment's hesitation the man threw back
part of the blanket, and there before Jimmie's eyes was a most
horrible sight — a human leg, a large white leg, the lower half
covered with a black stocking tied at the top with a bit of
tape. It was such a leg as you see in the windows of stores
where they sell pretty things for ladies ; only this leg was soft,
mangled at the top, smeared with blood, and partly charred
black. One glance was enough for Jimmie, and he put his
hands over his eyes and turned and ran — out to the road and
away, away — anywhere from this pla^^ of nightmares !
VII
Jimmie's whole world was wiped out, ended. He had no
place to go, no care what became of him. He stumbled on
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136 JIMMIB HIGGINS
till he came to the trolley-track, and got on the first car which
came along. It was pure chance that it happened to be going
back to Leesville, for Jimmie had no longer any interest in
that city. When the car came to the barn, he got out and
wandered aimlessly, until he happened to pass a saloon where
he had been accustomed to meet Jerry Coleman, distributor of
ten dollar bills. Jimmie went in and ordered a drink of
whiskey; he did not tell the saloon-keeper what had happened,
but took the drink to a table and sat down by himself. When
he had finished, he ordered another, because it helped him not
to think ; he sat there at the table, drinking steadily for an hour
or more. And so upon his confused mind there dawned a
strange, a ghastly idea, climax of all that night of horror.
Which leg of Lizzie was it the man had been carrying wrapped
in a horse-blanket? The right leg or the left? If it was the
left leg, why, nothing; but if it was the right, why then, under
the stocking was sewed a bandage, and in that bandage was
wrapped a package containing seven faded yellow twenty dollar
bills!
And what would they do about it? Would they bury the
leg without investigation ? Or would the man who had found
it happen to undress it? And what was Jimmie to do? A
hundred and forty dollars was not to be sneezed at by a work-
ing-man — it was more money than he had ever had in his life
before, or might ever have again. But could he go to the
man and say, "Did you find any money on my wife's leg?"
Could he say, "Please give me my wife's leg, so that I can
undress it and unsew the bandage, and get the money that I was
paid for keeping quiet about the surgical operation on Lacey
Granitch,- that was done in my house before it was blown to
pieces by the explosion."
Jimmie thought it all over while he took a couple more
drinks, and finally settled it to himself : "Aw hell ! What do I
want with money ? I ain't a;-goin' to live no more !"
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CHAPTEK XIV
JIMMIE I-IIGOIXS TAKES THE KOAD
TCMMIB HIGGINS was wandering down the street, when he
•^ ran into "Wild Bill," who was, of course, greatly surprised
to see his friend in a drunken condition. When he heard the
reason, he revealed an unexpected side of his nature. If you
judged "Wild Bill" by his oratory, you thought him a creature
poisoned through and through, a soul turned rancid with envy,
hatred and malice and all uncharitableness. But now the tears
came into his eyes, and he put his arm over Jimmie's shoulder.
"Say, old pal, that's bum luck! By God, I'm sorry!" And
Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much as somebody to be sorry
with, clasped Bill in his arms, and burst into tears, and told
over and over again how he had gone to what had been his
home, and found only a huge crater blown out by the explosion,
and how he had gone about calling his wife and babies, until
at last they had brought him one leg of his wife.
"Wild Bill" listened, until he knew the story through, and
then he said, "See here, old pal, let's you and me quit this
town."
"Quit?" said Jimmie, stupidly.
"Every time I open the front of my face now, the police
jump in it. Leesville's a hell of a town, I say. Let's get out."
"Where'U wego?"
"Anywhere — ^whafs the diff? It's coming summer. Let's
slam the gates."
Jimmie was willing — ^why not? They went back to the
lodging-house where Bill lived, and he tied up his worldly
goods in a gunny-sack — the greater part of the load consisting
of a diary in which he had recorded his adventures as leader
of an unemployed army which had started to march from Cali-
fornia to Washington, D. C, some four years previously. They
137
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138 JIMMIE HIGGINS
took the trolley, and getting off in the country, walked along the
banks of the river, Jimmie still sobbing, and Bill in the grip of
one of his fearful coughing spells. They sat down beside the
stream, not so far from where Jimmie had gone in swimming
with the Candidate; he gave a touching account of this adven-
ture, but fell asleep in the middle of it, and Bill wandered off
and begged some food at a farm-house, using his cough as a
convenient lever for moving the heart of the house-wife. When '
night came, they sought the railroad and got on board a south-
ward-moving freight ; so Jimmie Higgins went back to the hobo
life, at which he had spent a considerable part of his youth.
But there was a difference now; he was no longer a blind
and helpless victim of a false economic system, but a revolution-
ist, fully class-conscious, trained in a grim school. The country
was going to war, and Jimmie was going to war on the country.
The two agitators got off the train at a mining-village, and
got a job as "surface-men," and proceeded to preach their gospel
of revolt to the workers in a lousy company boarding-house.
When they were found out, they "jumped" another freight, 'and
repeated the performance in another part of the district.
The companies were too vigilant for there to be any chance
of a strike; but "Wild Bill" whispered to the young workers
that he knew a trick worth two of that — ^he would teach them
the art of "striking on the job" ! This idea of course had great
charm for embittered men ; enabling them to pay back the boss,
while at the same time continuing on his pay-roll. Bill had
read whole books in which the theory and practice of "sabotage"
were worked out, and he could tell any sort of workman tricks
to make his employer sweat under the collar. If you worked
in a machine-shop, you dropped emery-powder into the bear-
ings ; if you worked on a farm, you drove copper nails into the
fruit-trees, which caused them to die ; if you packed apples; you
stuck your thumb-nail into one, which made sure that the whole
box would be rotten when it arrived ; if you worked in a saw-mill,
you drove a spike into a log; if you worked in a restaurant, you
served double portions to ruin the boss, and spit in each porr-
tion, to make sure the customer did not derive any benefit.
All these things you did in a fervour of exaltation, a mood of
frenzied martyrdom, because of the blaze of hate which had been
fanned in your soul by a social system based upon oppression
and knavery.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD 139
II
To Jimmie, giving the obscure and comparatively peaceful
life of a Socialist propagandist, the question of "sabotage, vio-
lence and crime" had been a more or less academic one, about
which the comrades debated acrimoniously, and against which
they voted by a large majority. But now Jimmie was out among
the "wobblies," the "blanket-stiffs" — the unskilled workers who
had literally nothing but their musclcrpower to sell; here he
was in the front-line trenches of the class war. These men
wandered about from one job to another, at the mercy of the
seasons and the fluctuations of industry. They were deprived
of votes, and therefore of their status as citizens; they were de-
prived of a chance to organise, and therefore of their status as
human beings. They were lodged in filthy bunk-houses, fed
upon rotten food, and beaten or jailed at the least word of
revolt. So they fought their oppressors with any and every
weapon they could lay hands on.
In the turpentine-country, in a forest, Jimmie and his pal
came to a "jungle," a place where the "wobblies" congregated,
living off the country. Here around the camp-fires Jimmie met
the guerrillas of the class-struggle, and learned the songs of
revolt which they sang — some of them parodies on Christian
hymns which would have caused the orthodox and respectable
to faint with horror. Here they rested up, and exchanged data
on the progress of their fight, and .argued over tactics, and
cussed the Socialists and the other "politicians" and "labour-
fakirs," and sang the praises of the "one big union," and the
"mass strike," and "direct action" against the masters of indus-
try. They told stories of their sufferings and their exploits, and
Jimmie sat and listened. Sometimes his eyes were wide with
consternation, for he had never met men so desperate as these.
For example, "Strawberry" Curran — ^named for his red hair
and innumerable freckles — an Irish boy with the face of a choir-
singer, and eyes that must have been taken straight out of the
blue vault of heaven. This lad told about a "free speech fight"
in a far Western city, and how the chief of police had led the
clubbing, and how they had got back at him. "We bumped
him off all right," said "Strawberry" ; it was a favourite phrase
of his — whenever anybody got in his way, he "bumped him off."
And then "Flathead Joe," who came from the Indian country,
10
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140 JIMMIE HIGGINS
was moved to emulation, and told how he had put dynamite
under the supports of a mine-breaker, and the whole works had
slid down a slope into a canyon a mile below. And then a
lame fellow, "Chuck" Peterson, told about the imprisonment of
two strike-leaders in the hop-country of California, and of the
epidemic of fires and destructions that had plagued that region
for several years since.
All such things these men talked about quite casually, as
soldiers would talk about the events of the last campaign. This
class-war had been going on for ages, and had its own ethics
and its own traditions; those who took part in it had their
heroisms and sublimities, precisely like any other soldiers. They
would have been glad to come into the open and fight, but
the other side had all the guns. Every time the "wobblies"
succeeded in organising the workers and calling a big strike,
all the agencies of capitalist repression were called in — they
were beaten by capitalist policemen, shot by capitalist sheriffs,
starved and frozen in capitalist jails, and so their strike was
crushed and their forces scattered. After many such experi-
ences, it was inevitable that the hot-headed ones should take to
secret vengeance, should become conspirators against capitalist
society. And society, forgetting all the provocations it had
given, called the "wobblies" criminals, and let it go at that.
But they were a strange kind of criminal, serving a- far-off
dream. They had their humours and their humanities, their
literature and music and art. Among them were men of educa-
tion, graduates of universities both in America and abroad;
you might hear one of the group about these camp-fires telling
about slave-revolts in ancient Egypt and Greece; or quoting
Strindberg and Stirner, or reciting a scene from Synge, or nar-
rating how he had astounded the family of some lonely farm-
house by playing Eachmaninoff's "Prelude" on a badly out-of-
tune piano.
Also you met among them men who had kept their gentle-
ness, their sweetness of- soul ; men of marvellous patience, whose
dream of human brotherhood no persecution, no outrage had
been able to turn sour. They clung to their vision of a world
redeemed, made over by the outcast and lowly ; a vision that was
brought to the world by a certain Jewish carpenter, and has
haunted mankind for nineteen hundred years. The difference
was that these men knew precisely how they meant to do it ; they
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD 141
had a definite philosophy, a definite programme, which they car-
ried as a gospel to the wage-slaves of the world. And they knew
that this glad message would never die — not all the jails and
clubs and machine-guns in the country could kill it, not obloquy
and ridicule,, not hunger and cold and disease. No ! for the work-
ers were hearing and understanding, they were learning the all-
precious lesson of Solidarity. They were forming the "one big
union," preparing the time when they would take over industry
and administer it through their own workers' councils, instead
of through the medium of parliaments and legislatures. That
was the great idea upon which the Industrial Workers of the
World was based ; it was this they meant by "direct action," not
the sinister thing which the capitalist newspapers made out of
the phrase.
Ill
The country was going into its own war, which it considered
of importance, and it called upon Jimmie Higgins and the rest
of his associates to register for military service. In the month
of June ten million men came forward in obedience to this
call — but Jimmie, needless to say, was not among them. Jim-
mie and his crowd thought it was the greatest joke of the age.
If the country wanted them, let it come and get them! And
sure enough, the country came — a sheriff and some thirty
farmers and turpentine-workers sworn in as deputies and armed
with shot-guns and rifles. Should their sons go over seas to
be killed in battle, while these desperadoes continued to camp
out on the country, living on hogs and chickens which honest
men had worked to raise ? They had wanted to break up this
"jungle" for some time; now they could do it in the name of
patriotism ! They surrounded the camp, and shot one man who
tried to slip out in the darkness, and searched the rest for
weapons, and then loaded them into half a dozen automobiles
and took them to the nearest lockup.
So here was Jimmie, confronting a village draft-board.
How old was he ? The truth was that Jimmie did not know
definitely, but his guess was about twenty-six. The draft-limit
being thirty, he swore that he was thirty-two. And what were
they going to do about it? They didn't know where he had
been born, and they couldn't make him tell — ^because he didn't
know it himself ! His face was lined with many cares, and he
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142 JIMMIE HIGGINS
had a few grey hairs from that night of horror when his loved
ones had been wiped out of existence. These farmers knew how
to tell the age of a horse, but not how to tell the age of a man !
"We'll draft ye anyhow !" vowed the chairman of the boatd,
who was the local justice of the peace, an old fellow with a beard
like a billy-goat.
"All right," said Jimmie, "but you'll get nothin' out o' me."
"What d'ye mean P'
"I mean I wouldn't fight; I'm a conscientious objector to
war."
"They'll shoot ye!"
"Shoot away!"
"They'll send you to jail for life."
"What the hell do I care?"
It was difficult to know what to do with a person like that.
If they did put him in jail, they would only be feeding him at
the expense of the community, and that woidd not help to beat
the Germans. They could see from the flash in his eyes that
he would not be an easy man to break. Local interest asserted
itself, and the old fellow with the wagging beard demanded : "If
we let ye go, will ye get out o' this county ?"
"What the hell do I care about your old county?" replied
Jimmie.
So they turned him loose, and "Wild Bill" also, because it
was evident at a glance that he was not long for this world,
and its wars. The two of them broke into an empty freight-car,
and went thundering over the rails all night; and lying in the
darkness, Jimmie was awakened by a terrified cry from his com-
panion, and put out his hand and laid it in a mess that was hot
and wet.
"Oh, my God !" gasped Bill. "I'm done for I"
"What is it?"
"Hemorrhage."
The terrified Jimmie did not even know what that was.
There was nothing he could do but sit there, holding his friend's
trembling hand and listening to his moans. When the train
stopped, Jimmie sprang out and rushed to one of the brakemen,
who came with his lantern, and saw "Wild Bill" lying in a pool
of blood, already so far gone that he could not lift his head.
"Jesus!" exclaimed the brakeman. "He's a goner, all right."
The "goner" was trying to say something, Bind Jimmie leaned
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD 143
his ear down to him. "Good-bye, old pal," whispered Bill.
That was all, but it caused Jimmie to burst out sobbing.
The engine whistled. "What the hell you stiffs doin' on this
train P' demanded the brakeman — but not so harshly as the
words would indicate. He lifted the dying man — no very seri-
ous burden — and laid him on the platform of the station.
"Sorry," he said, "but we're behind schedule." He waved his
lantern, and the creaking cars began to move, and the train
drew away, leaving Jimmie sitting by the corpse of his pal.
The world seemed a lonely place that long night.
In the morning the station-agent came, and notified the
nearest authorities, and in the course of the day came a wagon
to fetch the body. What was the use of Jimmie's waiting?
One "Potter's field" was the same as another, and there woidd
be nothing inspiring about the funeral. The man who drove
the wagon looked at Jimmie suspiciously and asked his age;
they were scarce of labour in that country, he said — the rule
was "Work or fight." Jimmie foresaw another session with
a draft-board, so he leaped onto another freight train, taking
with him as a legacy "Wild Bill's" diary of the unemployed
army.
ly
It was harvest-time, and Jimmie went West to the wheat
country. It was hard work, but the pay made your eyes bulge.
Jimmie realised that war was not such a bad thing — for the
ones that stayed at home ! If you didn't like one farmer's way
of speaking to you, or the kind of biscuits his wife offered you,
you could move on to the next, and he would take you in at
four bits more per day. It was the nearest approach to a work-
ingman's paradise that Jimmie had ever encountered. There
was really only one drawback — ^the pestiferous draft-boards
that never stopped snooping round. They were forever hauling
you up and threatening and questioning you — putting you
through the same scene over and over. Why couldn't the boobs
give you a card, showing that you had been through the mill,
and let that settle it? But no, they wouldn't give you a
card — ^they preferred to go on jacking you up because you had
no card I It was all a trick, thought Jimmie, to wear him out
and force him into their army by hook or by crook. But here
was one time when they would not get away with it !
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144 JIMMIE HIGGINS
However, Jimmie Higgins was not nearly so dangerous a
character, now that "Wild Bill" was gone out of his life. It
was really not his nature to cherish hate, or to set out deliber-
ately to revenge himself, Jimmie was a Socialist in the true
sense of the word — he felt himself a part of society, and that
peace and plenty and kindness which he desired for himself he
desired for all mankind. He was not dreaming of a time when
he could turn the capitalists out of power and treat them as they
were now treating him ; he meant the world to be just as good
a place for the capitalists as for the workers — all would share
alike, and Jimmie was ready to wipe out the old scores and
start fair any day. His propaganda regained its former ideal-
istic hue, and it was only when somebody tried to drag him into
the slaughter-pen that he developed teeth and claws.
So he became fairly happy again — happier than he had
thought he could ever be. It was in vain he told himself that
he had nothing to live for; he had the greatest thing in the
world to live for, the vision of a just and sane and happy world.
So long as anybody could be found to listen while he talked
about it and explained how it might be achieved, life was worth
while, life was real. It was only now and then that his bitter
heart-ache returned to plague him — when he wakened in the
night with his arms clasped about the memory of the soft,
warm, kindly body of Eleesa Betooser; or when he came to a
farm-house where there were children, whose prattle reminded
him of the little fellow who had been his prime reason for
wanting a just and sane and happy world. Jimmie' found that
he could not bear to work in one farm-house where there were
children; and when he told the farmer's wife the reason, he
and the woman declared a temporary truce to the class-war,
and celebrated it with half a large apple-pie.
The Socialists held a National convention at St. Louis, and
drew up their declaration concerning the war. They called it
the most unjustifiable war in history, "a crime against the
people of the United States"; they called on the workers of
the country to oppose it, and pledged themselves "to the support
of all mass movements in opposition to conscriptioh." This
was, of course, a serious step to take at such a time; the com-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD 145
rades realised it, and there were solemn gatherings to discuss
the referendum, and not a little disagreement as to the wisdom
of the declaration. In the town of Hopeland, near which Jimmie
was working, there was a local, and he had got himself trans-
ferred from Leesville, and paid up his back dues, and had his
precious red card stamped up to date. And now he would go
in and listen to debates, just as exciting and just as bewilder-
ing as those he had heard at the outbreak of the war.
There were some who pointed out the precise meaning of
those words, "all mass movements in opposition to conscription."
The leading dry-goods merchant of the town, who was a Social-
ist, declared that the words meant insurrection and mob violence,
and the resolution would be adjudged a call to treason. At which
there leaped to his feet a Russian Jewish tailor, Rabin by name ;
his first name was Scholem, which means Peace, and he cried
in great excitement: "Vot business have ve Socialists vit such
vords? Ve might leaf dem to de enemy, vot?" — You might
have thought you were in Leesville, listening to Comrade
Stankewitz. The only difference was that there were not many
Germans in this town, and those few confined their discussions
to Ireland and India.
Jimmie would hear the arguments, back and forth and back
again, and his mind would be in greater confusion than ever.
He hated war, as much as ever; but on the other hand, he was
learning to hate the Germans too. The American government,
going into war, had been forced to assert itself, and the stores
and billboards were covered with proclamations and picture-
posters, and the newspapers were fuU of recitals of the crimes
which Germany had committed against humanity. Jimmie
might refuse to read this "Wall Street dope," as he called it,
but the workingmen with whom he was associating read it,
and would fire it at him whenever they got into a controversy.
Also the daily events in the news despatches — the sinking of
hospital-ships filled with wounded, the shelliug of life-boats, the
dragging away into slavery in coal-mines of Belgian children
thirteen and fourteen years old! How could any man fail to
hate and to fear a government which committed such atrocities ?
How could he remain untroubled at the thought that he might
be assisting such a government to victory?
Jimmie was honest, he was trying to face the facts as he
saw them ; and when he stopped to think, when he remembered
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146 JIMMIE HIGGINS
the things he had done in company with "Wild Bill" and
"Strawberry" Curran and "Flathead Joe" and "Chuck" Peter-
son, he could not deny that he had been, however uninten-
tionally, helping the Kaiser to win the war. In his arguments
with others, Jimmie dared not tell all he knew about such mat-
ters; so, when he argued with himself, his conscience was
troubled, and doubt gnawed at his soul. Suppose it were true,
as Comrade Dr. Service had tried to prove to him, that a vic-
tory for the Kaiser would mean that America would have to
spend the next twenty or thirty years getting ready for the
next war ? Might it not then be better to forego revolutionary
agitation for a while, imtil the Kaiser had been put out of busi-
ness?
There were not a few Socialists who argued this way —
men who had been active in the movement and had possessed
Jimmie's regard before the war. Now they denounced the St.
Louis resolution — the "majority report" as it was called. When
this report was carried in referendum by a vote of something
like eight to one, these comrades withdrew from the party, and
some of them bitterly attacked their former friends. Such
utterances were taken up by the capitalist press ; and this made
Jimmie Higgins indignant. A fine lot of Socialists, to quit the
ship in the hour of peril ! Eenegades, Jimmie called them, and
compared them with Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold and
such like celebrities of past ages. They, being exactly, the same
sort of folks as Jimmie, answered by calling Jimmie a pro-
German and a traitor ; which did not make it easier to persuade
Jimmie to listen to their arguments. So both sides became
blinded with anger, forgetting about the facts in the case, and
thinking only of punishing a hated antagonist.
VI
All over the country now men were sending their sons to
the training-camps, and putting their money into "liberty-
bonds." So they were in no mood to listen to argument — they
would fly into a rage at the least hint that the cause in which
they were making sacrifices was not a perfectly just and right-
eous cause. There was an organisation called the "Peoples
Council for Peace and Democracy," which attempted to hold
a national convention; the gathering was broken up by mobs,
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JIMMIB HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD 147
and the delegates went wandering over the country, trying in
vain to get together. The mayor of Chicago gave them permis-
sion to meet in that city, but the governor of the state sent
troops to prevent! You see, the people of the country had
learned all about the organization for which Jerry Coleman had
been working — ^"Labour's National Peace Council"; and here
was another organization, bearing practically the same name,
and carrying on an agitation which seemed the same to the
average man. The distinction between hired treason and super-
idealism was far too subtle for the people to draw in a time of
such peril.
It was becoming more and more the fashion to arrest Social-
ists and to suppress their papers; the government authorities
in many places declared the "majority report" unmailable, and
indicted state and national secretaries for having sent it out
in the ordinary routine of their business. Jimmie received a
letter from Comrade Meissner in Leesville, telling him that
Comrade "Jack" Smith had been given two years in the peni-
tentiary for his speech in the Opera-house, and the other would-
be speakers had been fined five hundred dollars each. Several
issues of the "Worker" had been barred from the mails, and
now the police had raided the ofiices and forced the suspension
of the publication. All over the country that sort of thing
was happening, so now if you argued with Jimmie in favour of
the war, his answer was that America was more Prussian than
Prussia, and what was the use of fighting for Democracy abroad,
if you had to sacrifice every particle of Democracy at home
in order to win the fight?
Jimmie really believed this — he believed it with most des-
perate and passionate intensity. He looked forward to a war
won for the benefit of oppression at home ; he foresaw the system
of militarism and suppression riveted forever on the people of
America. Jimmie would admit that the President himself
might be sincere in the fine words he used about democracy;
but the great Wall Street interests which had run the country
for so many decades-^they had their secret purposes, for which
the war-frenzy served as a convenient cloak. They were going
to make universal military service the rule in America; they
were going to see to it that every school-child learned the mili-
tary lessons of obedience and subordination. Also they were
going to put the radical papers out of business and put a stop
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148 JIMMIB HIGGINS
to all radical propaganda. Those Socialists who had been
trapped into supporting the President's war-programme would
wake up some morning with a fearful dark-brown taste in their
mouths !
No, said Jimmie Higgins, the way to fight war was to resist
the subterfuges, however cunning and" plausible, by which men
sought to persuade you to support war. The way to fight war
was the way of the Eussians. The propaganda of proletarian
revolt, the glorious example which the Eussian workers had set,
would do more to break down the power of the Kaiser than all
the guns and shells in the world. But the militarists did not
want it broken that way — Jimmie suspected that many of them
would rather have the war won by the Kaiser than have it won
by the Socialists. The governments refused to give passports
to Socialists who wanted to meet in some neutral country and
work out the basis of a settlement upon which all the peoples
of the world might get together; and Jimmie took the banning
of this Socialist conference as the supreme crime of world-
capitalism, it was evidence that world-capitalism knew its true
enemy, and meant to use the war as an excuse to hold that
enemy down.
VII
Day by day Jimmie was coming to place more of his hopes
in Eussia. His little friend Eabin, the tailor, took a Eussian
paper published "in New York, the "Novy Mir," and would
translate its news and editorials. Local Hopeland, thus in-
spired, voted a message of fraternal sympathy to the Eussian
workers. In Petrograd and Moscow there was going on, it
appeared, a struggle between the pro-ally Socialists and the
Internationalists, the true, out-and-out, middle-of-the-road,
thick-and-thin proletarians. The former were called Menshe-
viki, the latter were called Bolsheviki, and of course Jimmie
was all for the latter. Did he not know the "stool-pigeon
Socialists" at home, who were letting themselves be used by;
capitalism ?
The big issues were two — first, the land, which the peasants
wanted to take from the landlords; and second, the foreign
debt. The Eussian Tsar had borrowed four billion dollars from
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE ROAD 149
France and a billion or two from England, to be used in en-
slaving the Eussian workers and driving several millions of
them to death on the battle-field. Now should the Eussian
workers consider themselves bound by this debt? When any-
body asked Jimmie Higgins that question, he responded with
a thunderous No, and he regarded as hirelings or dupes of
Wall Street all those Socialists who supported Kerensky in
Eussia.
When the American government, wishing to appeal to the
Eussian people for loyalty in the war, sent over a commission to
them, and placed at its head one of the most notorious corpora-
tion lawyers in America, a man whose life, the Jimmies said,
had been sold to service in the anti-liberal cause, Jimmie Hig-
gins' shrill voice became a yell of ridicule and rage. Of course
Jimmie's organisation saw to it that the Bolsheviki were in-
formed in advance as to the character of this commission —
something which was unnecessary, as it happened, because im-
mediately after the overthrow of the Tsar there had begun a
pilgrimage of Eussian Socialists from New York and San
Francisco, men who had seen the seamy side of American capi-
talism in the slums of our great cities, and who lost no time in
providing the Eussian radicals with full information concerning
Wall Street!
It chanced that in San Francisco a well-known labour leader
had been charged with planting a bomb to break up a "pre-
paredness" parade. He had been convicted upon what was
proven to be perjured testimony, and the labour unions of the
country had been conducting a campaign to save his life —
which campaign the capitalist newspapers had been carefully
overlooking, according to their invariable custom. But now the
returned exiles in Petrograd took up the matter, and organised
a parade to the American embassy, with a demand for the free-
ing of this "Muni." The report, of course, came back to
America — to the immense bewilderment of the American people,
who had never heard of this "Muni" before. To Jimmie Hig-
gins it seemed just the funniest joke on earth that a big labour-
struggle should be on in San Francisco, and Americans should
get their first news about it from Petrograd ! Look ! he would
cry — how much real democracy there is in America, how much
care for the working-classes !
So all that summer and fall, while Jimmie Higgins slaved
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150 JIMMIB HIGGINS
in the fields, getting in his country's wheat-crop, and then his
country's corn crop, there was a song of joy and awakening ex- ;
citement in his soul. Far over the seas men of his own kind
were getting the reins of power into their hands, for the
first time in the history of the world. It could not be long
before here in America the workers would learn this wonderful
lesson, would thrill to the idea that freedom and plenty might
really be their portion !
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CHAPTER XV
JIMMIE HIGGINS TURNS BOLSHEVIK
\]I7INTER was coming, and the farm-workers moved to the
" ' cities; but this year they did not go as bums and out-o'-
works — ^they went, each man a little king. Jimmie wandered
into the city of Ironton, and got himself a job in a big auto-
mobile shop at eight dollars a day, and set to work agitating
for ten dollars. It was not that he had any need of the extra
two dollars, of course, but merely because his first principle in
life was to make trouble for the profit-system. The capitalist
papers of this middle-Western metropolis were furiously de-
nouncing workingmen who struck "against their country" in
war-time; Jimmie, on the other hand, denounced those who
used "country" as camouflage for "boss," and made the war a
pretext to deprive labour of its most precious right.
There was a Socialist local in Ironton, still active and deter-
mined, in spite of the fact that its office had been raided by
the police, and most of the party's papers and magazines barred
from the mails. You could always get leaflets printed, how-
ever ; and if you coidd no longer denounce the war directly, you
could jeer at England's exhibition of "democracy" in Ireland,
you could point to the profits of the profiteers, and demand con-
scription of wealth along with conscription of manhood. Some
American Socialists became almost as subtle as that German
rebel of pre-war days, who, desiring to lampoon the Kaiser, wrote
an account of the life of the Roman emperor Agricola, reciting
his vanities and insane extravagances.
Late in the fall came an event which should have troubled
Jimmie Higgins more deeply than it' did. Along the Izonzo
river the Italian armies were facing the Austrians, their heredi-
tary enemies; they were at the end of a long, exhaustive, and
151
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152 JIMMIE HIGGINS
for the most part unsuccessful campaign, and the Italian Social-
ists at home were carrying on precisely such a warfare against
their own government as Jimmie Higgins was carrying on in
America. They were helped by the Catholic intriguers, who
hated the Italian government because it had destroyed the tem-
poral power of the Pope; they were helped by the subtle and
persistent efforts of Austrian agents in their country, who spread
rumours among Italian troops of the friendly intentions of the
Austrians, and of the imminence of a truce. These agents went
so far as to fake copies of the leading Italian newspapers, with
accounts of starvation and riots in the home-cities, and the
shooting down of women and children. These papers were
given out in the Italian trenches, before a certain mountain-
sector where the Austrian troops had been fraternising with the
Italians; and then, during the night, the Austrian troops were
withdrawn, and picked German "shock-troops" substituted, which
attacked at dawn and drove through the Italian lines, sweeping
back the army along a hundred mile front, capturing some
quarter of a million prisoners and a couple of thousand cannon —
practically all the Italians had.
That Jimmie Higgins did not pay more attention to this
terrifying incident was in part because he read it in the capi-
talist papers and did not believe it ; but mainly because his whole
attention just now was centred on Bussia, where the prole-
tariat was about to make its bid for power. Now you would
see how wars were to be ended and peace restored to a distracted
world !
The moderate Socialist government of Kerensky was plead-
ing with the capitalist masters of the Allied nations for a
statement of their peace terms, so that the workers of Eussia
might know what they were fighting for. The Eussian workers
wanted a declaration in favour of no annexations, no indemni-
ties, and disarmament; on such terms they would help fight
the war, in spite of all the starvation and suffering in distracted
Eussia. But the Allied statesmen would not make any such
declaration, and the Eussian workers, backed by all the Social-
ists of the world, declared that the reason was that these Allied
statesmen were waging an imperialist war — they did not intend
to stop fighting until they had taken vast territories from the
German powers, and exacted a ransom that would cripple Ger-
many for a generation. The Eussian workers refused point-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TURNS BOLSHEVIK 153
blank to fight for such aims, and so in November came the
second revolution, the uprising of the Bolsheviki.
Almost their first action when they took possession of the
palaces and government archives was to publish to the world
the secret treaties which the rulers of England, France and
Italy had made with Russia. These treaties formed a com-
plete justification for the attitude of the Russian revolutionists —
they showed that the Allied imperialists had planned most
shameless plundering; England was to have the German colonies
and Mesopotamia, France was to have German territory to the
Rhine, Italy was to have the Adriatic coast, and to divide
Palestine and Syria with England and France.
And herewas the most significant fact to Jimmie Higgins —
these enormously important revelations, the most important
since the beginning of the war, were practically suppressed by
the capitalist newspapers of America! First these papers
printed a brief item — ^the Bolsheviki had given out what they
claimed were secret treaties, but the genuineness of these docu-
ments was gravely doubted. Then they published evasive and
lying denials from the British, French and Italian diplomats;
and then they shut up ! Not another word did you read about
those secret treaties; except for one or two American news-
papers with traditions of honour, the full text of those treaties
was given in the Socialist press alone ! And now, cried Jimmie
Higgins, to the workingmen in his shop, what do you think of
those wonderful Allies of ours? What do you think of those
Wall Street newspapers of ours? Could any workingman who
had such facts put before him fail to realise that Jimmie Hig-
gins had a case, and a most important work in the world to do,
in spite of all his unreason and his narrowness?
II
Jimmie was now in the seventh heaven, walking as if on
air. A proletarian government at last, the first in history ! A
government of workingmen like himself, running their own
affairs, without the help of politicians or bankers! Coming
out before the worM and telling the truth about matters of
state, in language that common men could understand! Dis-
banding the armies, and sending the workers home! Turning
the masters out of the factories, and putting shop-committees
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154 JIMMIE HIGaiNS
in control! Taking away the advertising from the crooked
capitalist papers, and so putting them out of business! Our
little friend would rush to the corner every morning to get the
paper and see what had happened next ; he would go down the
street, so excited that he forgot his breakfast.
Jimmie had made a new acquaintance in Ironton ; the little
tailor, Eabin, whose name was Scholem, which means Peace,
had given him a letter to his brother, whose name was Deror,
which means Freedom. Each afternoon when the automobile
factory let out, Jimmie would get an evening paper and take it
to Deror's tailor-shop, and the two would spell out the news.
By God, look at this ! Did you ever hear the like ? The man
in charge of the Bolshevik foreign office was a Marxian Jew
who had helped edit the "Novy Mir," the revolutionary paper
which Scholem had read to Jimmie ! He had been a waiter in
the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, and now he was giving" out the
secret treaties, and issuing propaganda manifestos to the inter-
national proletariat!
The American capitalist press was full of lies about the new
revolution, of course; but Jimmie could read pretty well be-
tween the lines of the capitalist press, and the few Socialist
papers that were stiU in business, and which he read at the
headquarters of the local, gave him the rest of what he wanted.
To Jimmie, of course, everything the Bolsheviki did was right;
if it wasn't right, it was a lie. The little machinist knew that
the Bolsheviki had repudiated the four billion dollar debt which
the government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers
of Prance ; and Jimmie knew perfectly well what was the lying
power of four billion dollars !
The American papers were shocked because the Russian
Socialists were deserting the cause of democracy, and giving
Germany a chance to win the war. The American papers called
them German agents, but Jimmie did not take any stock in
such talk as this. Jimmie was familiar with the "frame up," as
it is operated against the workers in America. He saw that the
first thing the Bolshevik leaders did was to make an appeal
to the revolutionary vy^orkers of Germany. The Eussian prole-
tariat had shown the way — ^now let the German proletariat fol-
low! Literature was printed and shipped wholesale into Ger-
many, leaflets were dropped by aviators among the German
troops; and when Jimmie and Deror read that the German
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TUENS BOLSHEVIK 155
generals had protested to the Bussians against such practices,
they laughed aloud with delight. Well inight the war-lords
squeal; tiiey knew what was coming to them! And when in
January Jimmie and Deror read of the revolting of a brigade
of German troops, and a strike of several hundred thousand
workingmen throughout Germany, they thought the end was at
hand. The little tailor got up in Local Ironton and made a
motion that it take to itself the name "Bolshevik" — ^which
motion was carried with a whoop. And these American Bol-
sheviki went on to consult with the labour-unions, suggesting
that they should form "shop-committees," and prepare for the
taking over of industry a la Eusse !
Ill
But something went suddenly wrong with the newly built
revolutionary steam-roller. The German military chiefs seized
their strike-leaders at home and threw them into jail, or shipped
them off to the front trenches to be slaughtered. By terrorism,
shrewdly mixed with cajolery, they broke the strike, and sent
the grumbling slaves back to their treadmill. And then the
German armies began to march into Eussia !
It was the crisis to which Jimmie Higgins had been looking
forward ever since the war began. Tolstoi had taught that if
one nation refused to fight, it would be impossible for another
nation to invade it; and while Jimmie Higgins was no mystic
or religious non-resistant, he agreed in this with the great
Eussian. No workers in an enemy army could possibly be
brought to fire upon their peace-proclaiming brothers !
And here at last was the test of the theory; here were Ger-
raan Socialists ordered to march against Eussian Socialists —
ordered to fire upon the red flag! Would they do what their
masters, the war-lords, commanded? Or would they listen to
the clamorous appeals of the international proletariat, and turn
their guns against their own ofiBcers ?
All the world saw what happened; it saw the glorious revo-
lutionary machine, in which Jimmie Higgins had put all his
trust, run into a ditch and land, its passengers in the mud.
The German armies marched, and the Socialists in the Ger-
man armies did exactly what the non-Socialists did — they fired
upon the red flag, as they would have fired upon the flag of
11
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15f5 JIMMIE HIGGINS
the Tsar. They obeyed the orders of their oflScers, like true
and loyal Germans; they drove back the Bolsheviki in con-
fusion, taking their guns and supplies, and destroying their
cities ; they led off the Eussian women and children into slavery,
precisely as if they were Belgian or French women and chil-'
dren, destined by the German Gott as the legitimate prey of
Kultur. They sacked Kiga and Eeval, they overran all the
Eastern portions of Russia — Courland, Livonia, Esthonia; they
moved into the rich grain country of Southern Eussia, the
Ukraine ; they landed from their ships and took Finland, wiping
out the liberties of that splendid people. They were at the gates
of Petrograd, and the Bolshevik government was forced to
flee to Moscow. Of all which military feats the German Social-
ist papers spoke with stern pride!
IV
Poor Jimmie Higgins! It was like the blow of a mighty
fist in his face; he was literally stunned — it was weeks before
he could grasp the full meaning of what was happening, the
debacle of all his hopes. And it was the same with Ironton's
Bolshevik local; all the "pep" was gone out of its proceedings,.
To be sure, some noisy ones went on shouting for revolution
the very next day — men who had been talking formulas for
twenty or thirty years,, and had no more notion of a fact than
they had of a pseudopodium. But the sensible men of the group
knew that their "St. Louis resolution" was being shot to death
over there in the trenches before Petrograd.
It was interesting especially to see Eabin. The common
belief of Americans was that a Jew could not be induced to
fight; they told a story about one who cried out to his son,
asking why he was letting another boy pummel him, and the
son whispered in reply, "Keep still, I got a nickel under my
foot !" AH through the war the Jewish Socialists in America
had been, next to the Germans, the most ardent pacifists; but
now here was a social revolution managed by Jews, here was a
Russian government which gave the Jews their rights for the
first time in history! So the little Jewish tailor stood up be-
fore these American Bolsheviki, and with tears running down
his cheeks declared : "Comrades, I am abeady tru vit speeches ;
I am going into dis var ! I vill put myself vit de Polish Social-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TURNS BOLSHEVIK 157
ists, yit de Bohemian Socialists — I fight de Kaiser to de death !
So vill fight every Jewish Socialist in de vorld!" And this
was no mere braggadocio — Comrade Eabin actually proceeded
to shut up his tailor-shop, and went away to join the "red
brigade" which was being organised by the Jewish revolutionists
of New York!
If the German war-lords had set out deliberately to ham-
string the American Socialists, to make it impossible for them
to go on demanding peace, they could not have acted differently.
They dragged the helpless Bolsheviki into a peace-conference
at Brest-Litovsk, and forced them to cede away all the territories
that Germany had taken, and on top of that to pay an enor-
mous indemnity. They planned to compel the new Russian
government to become a vassal to the Central powers, working
to help them enslave the rest of the world. The German armies
went through the conquered territories, stripping them bare,
robbing the peasants of every particle of food, beating them,
shooting them, burning their homes if they resisted. They gave
to the world such a demonstration of what a German peace
would mean, that everywhere free men set their teeth and
gripped their hands, and swore to root this infamous thing from
out civilisation. Even Jimmie Higgins !
Yes, even Jimmie! He made up his mind that he would
work as hard as ever he could, and produce as many automo-
bile-trucks as he could. But alas, a man cannot be hounded
and oppressed all his life, cannot have hatred and rebellion
ground into the deeps of his soul, and then forget it over-night
because of certain intellectual ideas, certain new items that he
reads in his paper. What happened to Jimmie was that his
mind was literally torn in half ; he found himself, every twenty-
four hours of his life, of two absolutely contradictory and
diametrically opposite points of view. He would vow destruc-
tion to the hated German armies ; and then he would turn about
and vow destruction to the men at home who were managing the
job of destroying the Grerman armies !
For these men were Jimmie's life long enemies, and were
no more able to forget their prejudices over-night than was
Jimmie. For example, the lying capitalist paper which Jimmie
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158 JIMMIB HIGGINS
had to read every morning ! When Jimmie had read a patriotic
editorial in the "Ironton Daily Sun," it had become utterly
impossible for him to help win the war that day! Or the
politicians, seeking to use the war-cry of democracy abroad to
crush all traces of democracy at home; to "get" the radicals
whom they hated and feared, and by means of taxes on neces-
sities and a bonded debt to put the costs of the war onto the
poor ! Or the capitalists, making fervid speeches about patriot-
ism, but refusing to give up the whip-hand over their wage-
slaves !
Jimmie Higgins was working in a factory, making auto-
mobile-trucks for the armies in France ; and the owners of the
factory would not let the men have a imion, and so there
was a strike. The bosses niade an agreement to take every-
body back and permit a union, and tiien proceeded treacher-
ously to violate the agreement, getting rid of the most active
organisers on this or that transparent pretext. Jimmie Higgins,
trying to help with the skill of his hands to make the world
safe for democracy, was turned out of his job and left to wander
in the streets, because a big profit-seeking corporation did not
believe in democracy, and refused to permit its workers any
voice in determining the conditions of their labour ! The Gov-
ernment was trying to deal with emergencies such as this, to put
an end to the epidemic of strikes which was hindering the war-
work everywhere; but the government had not yet got its
machinery going, and meantime Jimmie's little feeble sprout
of patriotism got a severe chill.
Jinmiie got drunk, and wasted a part of his money on a
wpman of the street. Then, being ashamed of himself, and still
plagued by the memory of his dead wife and babies, he straight-
ened up and resolved to start life anew. He found himself
thinking about Leesville; it was the only place in the world
where he had ever been really happy, and now since Deror
Eabin had gone Bast, it was the only place where he had friends.
How were the Meissners niaking out ? How was Comrade Mrs.
Gerrity, nee Baskerville? What was Local Leesville thinking
about Eussia and about the war ? Jimmie took a sudden resolve
to go and find out. He priced a ticket, and found that he had
enough money and to spare. He would take the journey — and
take it in state, as a citizen and a war-worker, not as a hobo
in a box-car !
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CHAPTER XVI
JIMMIB HIGGINS MEETS THE TEMPTER
l^HEN Jimmie Higgins stepped off the train at Leesville,
' " it was a blustery morning in early March, with snow still
on the ground and flurries of it in the air. In front of the
station was a public square,, with a number of people gathered,
and Jimmie strolled over to see what was going on. What he
saw was a score of young men, some in khaki uniforms, some in
ordinary trousers and sweaters, being drilled. Jimmie, being
in the mood of a gentleman of leisure, stopped to watch the
show.
It was the thing he had been talking and thinking about
for nearly three years : this monstrous perversion of the human
soul called Militarism, this force which seized hold of men and
made them into automatons, moving machines which obeyed
orders in a mass, and went out and did deeds of which none of
them taken separately would have been capable, even in their
dreams. Here was a bunch of average nice Leesville boys,
employes of the shops nearby, "soda-jerkers" and "counter-
jumpers," clerks who had deftly fitted shoes onto the feet of
pretty ladies^ Now they were submitting themselves to this
deforming discipline, undergoing this devilish transmogrifica-
tion !
Jimmie's eye ran down the line: there was a street-car
conductor he knew, there was a machinist from the Empire,
also there was a son of Ashton Chalmers, president of the First
National Bank of Leesville. And suddenly Jimmie gave a
start. Impossible! It could not be! But — it was! Young
Emil Forster ! Emil a Socialist, Emil a German, Bmil a student
and thinker, who had penetrated the hypocritical disguises of
this capitalist war, and had fearlessly proclaimed the truth
every Friday night at the local — here he was with a suit of
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160 JIMMIB HIGGINS
khaki on his rather frail figure, a rifle in his hand and a look
of grim resolve on his face, going through the evolutions of
squad-drill: left, right, left, right, left, right — column left,
march — one, two, three, four — ^left, right, left, right, — squad
right about, march — left, right, left, right — squad. left oblique,
march — and so on. If you are to form any picture of the
scene you must iniagine the swift tramp of many feet in unison
— ^thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump; you must
imagine the marchers, with their solemnly set faces, and the
orders thundered out by a red-faced young man of desperate
aspect, the word march coming each time with a punch that
hit you over the heart. This red-faced young man was the
very incarnation of the military despot as Jimmie had pic-
tured him; watching with hawk-like eye, scolding, pounding,
driving, with no slightest regard for the feelings of the slaves
he commanded, or for any of the decencies of civilised inter-
course.
"Hold those half steps, Casey! Keep your eye on the end
man — you'll have him splitting his legs if you don't wait for
him, C!olumn left, march — one, two, three, four — now you're
all right — off with .you — that's better! Put a little pep into
your feet, Chalmers, for God's sake — if you go marching into
Berlin like that they'll think it's the hospital squad ! By the
right flank, column fours, march — watch your distance there,
end man ! How many times do you want me to tell you that ?"
— And so on and on — tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp — while a
small boy standing beside Jimmie, evidently a truant from
school, chanted over and over: "Left — left — ^the soldier got
drunk and he packed up his trunk and he left — left ! And do
you not think he was right — ^right?"
II
Ifow if you have ever stood about and watched outdoor
exercise or games, on a day in March with snow on the ground
and a keen wind blowing, you know how it is — ^you have to
stamp your feet to keep warm; and if in your neighbourhood
there are twenty left feet smiting the ground in unison, and
then twenty right feet smiting the ground in unison, it is
absolutely inevitable that your stamping should keep time to the
smiting; also the rhythm of your stamping will be communi-
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JIMMIE HIQGINS MEETS THE TEMPTER 161
cated upwards iuto your body — ^your thoughts will keep time
•with the marching squad — tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp — ^left,
right, left, right ! The psychologists tell us that one who goes
through the actions appropriate to an emotion will begin to feel
that emotion ; and so it was with Jimmie Higgins. By a process
so subtle that he never suspected it Jimmie n^as being made iuto
a militarist! Jimmie's hands were clenched, Jimmie's jaw was
set, Jimmie's feet were tramping, tramping on the road to Ber-
lin, to teach the Prussian war-lords what it meant to defy the
free men of a great republic !
But then something would happen to blast these budding
excitements in Jimmie's souL The red-faced fellow would brea^
into the rhythm of the march. "For the love of Mike, Pete
Casey, can't you remember those half -steps ? Squad, halt ! Now
look here, what's the matter with you? Step out and let me
show you once more." And poor Casey, a mepk-faced little man
with sloping shoulders, who had been running the elevator in
the Chalmers Building up to a week ago, would patiently prac-
tise marching without moving, so that the rest of the line could
wheel round him as a pivot. The petty tyrant who scolded at
him was determined to have his own way ; and Jimmie, who had
had to do with many such tyrants in his long years of industrial
servitude, was glad when this particular one got mixed up in
his orders, and ran his squad into the fountain in the middle
of the drill-ground, and some of them marched over the para-
pet, sliding down into the ice-covered basin below. The spec-
tators roared, and so did the marchers, and the red-faced young
man had to join in, and to come down off his high horse.
The conflict of impulses went on in Jimmie's soul. These
marching men were the "boobs" at whom he had been mocking
for something over two years. They did not look like "boobs,"
he had to admit; on the contrary, they looked quite capable of
deciding what they wanted to do. And they had decided ; they
had quit their jobs several w6eks in advance of the time when
they would be called for the draft, and had set to work to learn
the rudiments of the military art, in the hope of thus gettiiig
more quickly to France. Among them were bankers and mer-
chants and real estate dealers, side by side with soda-jerkers
and counter-jumpers and elevator-men — and all taking their
orders from an ex-blacksmith's helper, who had run away to
fight in the Philippines.
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162 JIMMIB HIGGINS
Jimmie got this last bit of information from a fellow who
stood watching; so he realised that here was the thing he
had been reading about in the papers — the new army of the
people, that was going forth to make the world safe for democ-
racy! Jimmie had read such words, and thought them just
camouflage, a trap for the "boobs." But here, a sight of won-
der before his eyes, a son of Ashton Chalmers, president of the
First National Bank of Leesville, being ordered about and
hauled over the coals by an ex-blacksmith's helper, who happened
to know how to shout with the accents of a pile-driver: "Shoul-
der humps! Order humps! Present humps!"
The squad spread itself out for exercise — ^grasping their
heavy rifles and swinging them this way and that with desperate
violence. "Swing over head and return, ready, exercise — one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight — eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one." It was no joke making those swings
in such quick time ; the poor little elevator-man Casey was left
hopelessly behind, he could only make half the swing, and then
couldn't get back to place on the count; he would look about,
grinning sheepishly, and then fall into time and try again.
Everybody's face was set, everybody's breath was coming harder
and harder, everybody's complexion was becoming apoplectic.
"Swing to the right!" shouted the blacksmith-tyrant.
"Eeady, exercise — one, two" — and so on. And then he would
yell: "Ko, Chalmers, don't punch out with your arms — swing
up your gun ! Swing it up from the bottom ! That's the way !
Poke 'em! Poke 'em! Put the punch into 'em!" And over
Jimmie stole a cold horror. There was nothing on the end of
those guns but a little black hole, but Jimmie knew what was
supposed to be there — ^what would some day be there; the ex-
ercise meant that these affable young Leesville store-clerks
were getting ready to drive a sharp, gleaming blade into the
bowels of human beings! "Poke 'em! Poke 'em!" shouted
the ex-blacksmith, and with desperate force they swung the
heavy rifles, throwing their bodies to one side and leaping out
with one foot. Horrible! Horrible!
in
Man is a gregarious animal, and it is a fundamental law
of his being that when a group of his fellows are doing a cer-
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tain thing, and doing it with energy and fervor, any one who
does not do it, who does not share the mood of energy and fer-
vour, shall be the object of ridicule and anger, shall feel within
his own heart confusion and distress. This is true, even if the
group is doing nothing more worth-while than making itself
drunk. How much more shall it be when it is engaged in mak-
ing the world safe for democracy!
The only way the man can save himself is by holding before
his mind the belief that he is right, and that some day this will
be recognised; in other words, by appealing to some other
group of men, who in some future time will applaud him.
If he is sure of this future applause, he can manage to stand
the jeers for the moment. But how when he begins to doubt —
when his mind is haunted by the possibility that the men of the
future may agree with those of the present, who are learning
to march in unison, and to poke bayonets into the bodies of
Huns?
One of the things which brought this destructive doubt to
Jimmie's soul was the sight of Emil Forster, learning to march
and to poke. Emil had been one of his heroes, Emil knew a
hundred times as much as he — and Emil was going to the war !
The squad marched away to the city hall across the square,
and deposited its rifles in a room in the basement, and then
Emil came out, and Jimmie went up to him. The young car-
pet-designer of course was delighted to meet his old friend,
and asked him to go to Ixmch. As they walked along the street
together Jimmie asked what it meant, and Emil answered:
"It means that I have made up my mind."
"You're going to fight the German people ?"
"Strange as you'll think it, I'm going to fight them for
their own good. Bebel wrote in his memoirs that the way to
get democratic progress in autocratic countries is through
military defeat; and it seems up to America to provide this de-
feat for Germany."
"But — ^you were preaching just the opposite!"
"I know; it makes me feel foolish sometimes. But things
have changed, and there's no sense shutting your eyes to facts."
Jimmie waited.
"Eussia, more especially," contiuued Emil, answering the
imspoken question. "What's the use of getting Socialism, if
you're just throwing yourself down for a military machine to
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164 JIMMIB HIGGINS
run over you? You're playing the fool, that's all — and you
have to see it. What hope is there for Eussia now ?"
"There's the German Socialists."
"Well, they just didn't have the power, that's all. Whaf s
more, we have to face the fact that a lot of them aren't really
revolutionists — ^they're politicians, and haven't dared to stand
out against the crowd. Anyhow, whatever the reason is, they
didn't save their own country, and they didn't save Eussia.
They certainly can't expect us to give them a third chance — it
costs too much."
"But then," argued Jimmie, "ain't we doin' just what we
blame them for doin' — turnin' patriots, supportin' a capitalist
government ?"
"When you're supporting a government," replied Emil, "it
makes a lot of difference what use it's making of your support.
We all know the faults of our government, but we know too
that the people can change it when enough of them get ready,
and that makes a real diflference. I've come to realise that if
we give the Kaiser a beating, the German people will kick him
out, and then we can talk sense to them."
IV
They walked along for a bit in silence, Jimmie trying to
assimilate these ideas. They were new — not in the sense that he
had not heard them before, but in the sense that he had not heard
themfrom a German. "How does your father feel?" he asked,
at last.
"He hasn't changed," replied the other. "And that makes it
pretty hard — it's all we can do to keep from quarrelling. He's
old, and new ideas don't come to him easily. Yet you'd think
he'd be the first to see it — ^his father was one of the old revolu-
tionists, he was put in jail in Dresden. I don't suppose you
know much about the history of Germany."
"No," said Jimmie.
"Well, in those days the German people tried to get free,
and they were put' down by the troops, and the real revolu-
tionists were driven into exile. Some of them came over here —
like my grandfather. But you see, their children have for-
gotten about their wrongs — ^they look back on Germany now,
and think of it sentimentally, as it's pictured in the stories and
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songq — a sort of Christmas-tree Germany. They don't know
about the Germany that's grown up — the Germany of iron and
coal kings, that combines all the cruelty of feudalism with mod-
ern efficiency and science — the Beast with the Brains of an
Engineer !"
They walked on, Emil lost in thought. "You know," he broke
out, suddenly, "this war has been a revelation to me — the most
horrible you could imagine. It's as if you loved a woman, and
saw her go insane before your eyes, or turn into some sort of
degenerate. For I believed in the Christmas-tree Germany;
I loved it, and I argued for it, I just couldn't bring myself to
believe what I read in the papers. Now I look back, and it
seems like a trap that the German war-lords had set for my mind
— reaching way over here into America, and making me think
what they wanted me to! Perhaps I've gone to the other ex-
treme — I find I distrust everything that's German. Father
accused me of it last night; he was singing an old German
song that says that when you hear men singing you may lie
down in peace, for bad men have no songs. And I reminded
him that the nation which taught that idea had marched into
Belgium singing!"'
"Gee !" exclaimed Jimmie. He could imagine how old Her-
mann Forster had taken that remark!
The young carpet-designer smiled, rather sadly. "He says
if s because I've put on khaki. But the truth is, I'd been full
of these thoughts, and all at once they came to a head. I was
drafted, and I had to make up my mind one way or the other.
I decided I'd fight — and then, when I'd decided, I wanted to
get into it right away." Emil paused, and looked at his friend
and asked, "What about you?"
Jimmie, of course, was a draft-evader, one of the hated
"slackers." Ordinarily, he would have told Emil, and the two
of them would have grinned. But now Emil was in khaki,
Emil was a patriot; perhaps it would not be wise to trust him
entirely! "They haven't got me yet," said Jimmie; and thm,
"I ain't so sure as I used to be, but I ain't ready to be a soldier
— ^I dunno's I could stand bein' bossed like that fellow does it."
Emil laughed, "Don't you suppose I want to learn?"
"But does he need to call you names ?"
"Thaf s part of the game — nobody minds that. He's putting
the pep into us — and we want it in."
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166 JIMMIB HIGGINS
Jimmie ifound that such a new point of view that he didn't
know what to reply,
"You see," the other went on, "if you really want to fight,
you go in for it; it's quite remarkable how your feelings change.
You imagine yourself in the presence of the enemy, and you
know your success depends on discipline; if there's a leader,
and especially if you feel that he knows his business, you're
glad to have him to teach you, to make the whole machine do.
what you want it to. I know it sounds funny from me, but
I've learned to love discipline." And Emil laughed, a nervous
laugh. "This army means business, let me tell you; and it's
got right down to it. They've been fighting three years and
a half over in Europe, and they send their best men over to
show us, and we dig in and learn — I tell you, we work as if the
devil was after us!"
It sounded so strange to hear things like this from the lips
of Emil Forster ! Jimmie could hardly make them real to him-
self — ^the world was slipping from under his feet. The Socialist
movement was being seduced — ^won over by the militarists!
He didn't quite dare to say this; but he hinted, cautiously,
"Ain't you afraid maybe we'll get used to fightin' — to discipline
and all that? May be they'll trick us — ^the plutes."
"I know," said the other. *Tve thought of that, and I've
no doubt they'll try it — ^they want imiversal training for that
very purpose. We have to fight them, that's all; we have to
fight right now — ^to make clear why we're going into this war.
We have to hold it before the people — that this is a war to
bring democracy to the whole world. If we can fix that in
people's minds, the imperialists won't have a look in."
"If you could do it, of course " began Jimmie, hesitat-
ingly.
"But we are doing it!" cried Emil. "We're doing it day
by day. Look at this strike here in Leesville."
"What strike?"
"Didn't you know there'd been another walk-out in the
E*»pire Shops?"
''No, I didn't."
"The men went out, and the government sent an arbitration
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commission, and forced both sides to accept an award. They
broke old Granitch down — made him recognise the union and
grant the basic eight hour day."
"My God !" exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which
he had stood up in the Empire yards and been cursed by
young Lacey Granitch ; it was the thing for which he had been
sent to jail and devoured by lice! And now the government
had helped the men to win their demand! It was the first
time-^literally the first in Jimmie's whole life — ^that he had
been led to think of the government as something else than an
enemy and a slave-driver.
"How did Granitch take it?" he asked.
"Oh, awful ! He threatened to quit, and let the government
run his plant; but when he found the government was per-
fectly willing, he dropped his bluff. And look here — here's
something else." Emil reached into an inside pocket of his
overcoat and pulled out a newspaper clipping. "Ashton Chal-
mers went to a banquet at some bankers' convention the other
day and made a speech to them. Eead this."
Jimmie, walking along, read some words that Emil had
underscored in pencil: "Whether we will or no, we have to
recognise that the old, order is dead. We face a new era, when
labour is coming into its own. If we do not want to be left
behind as derelicts, we shall have to get busy and do our part
to bring in this new era, which otherwise will come with blood-
shed and destruction."
"For the love of Mike !" said Jimmie.
"It just about knocked Leesville out," said Emil. "You
ought to have seen the papers that reported the speech! It
was as if God in his heaven had gone crazy, and the clergymen
in the churches had to tell the news !"
To the little machinist there fiashed a sudden idea. He
caught his friend by the arm. "Emil!" he exclaimed. "Do
you remember that time when Ashton Chalmers and old Gran-
itch came to our meeting at the Opera-House?'
"Sure thing !" said Emil.
"Maybe that done it !"
"Nothing more likely."
"And it was me that sold him the tickets!"
Jimmie was thrilled to the bottoms of his shoes. Such is
the reward that comes now and then to the soul of a propa-
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168 JIMMIE HIGGINS
gandist; he struggles on amid ridicule and despair — and then
suddenly, like a gleam of light, comes evidence that some-
where, somehow, he has reached another mind, he has made a
real impression. Ashton Chalmers had listened to the Social-
ist orator, and he had gone away and read and investigated;
he had realised the force of this great world movement for
economic justice, he had broken the bonds and barriers of his
class, and told the truth about what he saw coming. When
Jimmie read the wonderful words which the bank president
had spoken, he was nearer to an impulse to fight Germany than
at any previous moment of his life!
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CHAPTER XVII
JIMMIE HIGGINS WKESTLES WITH THE TBMPTKE
f~\P course, not all the Socialists of Leesville had got the "mili-
^^ tary bug" like Emil Forster. Late in the afternoon, Jimmie
ran into Comrade Schneider, on his way home from work at the
brewery, and he was the same old Schneider — the same florid
Teuton countenance, the same solid Teuton voice, the same
indignant Teuton point of view. All Jimmie had to do was
to mention the name of Emil, and Schneider was off. A hell
of a Socialist he was ! Couldn't even wait for the drill-sergeant
to come after him, but had to run and hunt for him, had to
go and put himself out in the public square, where the town-
loafers could watch him playing the monkey !
No, said Schneider, with abundant profanity, he had not
moved one inch from his position ; they could send him to jail
any time they got ready, they could stand him up before a firing-
squad, but they'd never get any militarism into him. Pressed
for an answer, the big brewer admitted that he had registered ;
but he wasn't going to be drafted, not on his life! Jimmie
suggested that this might be because he had a wife and six
children; but the other was too much absorbed in his tirade to
notice Jimmie's grin. He blustered on, in a tone so loud that
several times people on the street overheard, and gave him a
black look. Jimmie, being less in the mood of martyrdom,
parted from him and went to see the Meissners.
The little bottle-packer was living in the same place, having
rented the upper part of his house to a Polish family to help
meet his constantly rising expenses. He welcomed Jimmie with
open arms — patted him on the back with delight, and opened
a bottle of beer to treat him. He asked a hundred questions
about Jimmie's adventures, and told in turn about events in
Leesville. The local as a whole had stood firm against the war,
169
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170 . JIMMIE HIGGINS
and was still carrying on propaganda, in the face of ferocious
opposition. The working classes were pumped so full of "patri-
otic dope," you could hardly get them to listen; as for the
radicals, they were marked men — ^their mail was intercepted,
their meetings attended by almost as many detectives as spec-
tators. A number had been drafted — ^which Meissner con-
sidered deliberate conspiracy on the part of the draft-boards.
Who had been taken ? Jimmie asked. The other answered :
Comrade Claudel, the jeweller — ^he wanted to go, of course;
and Comrade Koeln, the glass-blower — he was a German, but
had been naturalised, so they had taken him, in spite of his
protests; and Comrade Stankewitz
"Stankewitz !" cried Jimmie, in dismay.
"Sure, he's gone."
"Was he willing?"
"They didn't ask if he was willing. They just told him to
report."
Somehow that seemed to bring the war nearer to Jimmie's
consciousness than anything that had happened so far. The
little Eoumanian Jew had given him the greater part of his
education on this world-conflict; it was over the counter of the
cigar-store that Jimmie had got the first geography lessons of his
'life. He had learned that Eussia was the yellow country, and
Germany the green> and Belgium the pale blue, and France the
light pink ; he had seen how the railroads from the green to the
pink ran through the pale blue, and how the big fortresses in the
pale blue all faced towards the green — something which Meis-
sner and Schneider and the rest of the green people considered a
mortal affront, a confession of guilt on the part of the pale blue
people. Comrade Stakewitz's wizened up, eager little face rose
before Jimmie ; he heard the shrill voice, trying to compose the
disputes in the local. "Comrades, all this vill not get us any-
vere ! There is but vun question ve have to answer, are ve inter-
nationalists, or are ve not !"
"My God!" cried Jimmie. "Ain't that awful?"
He had got to the point where he was willing to admit that
perhaps the Kaiser had got to be licked, and maybe it was all
right for a fellow that felt like Emil Forster to go and lick
him. But to lay hold of a man who hated war with all his heart
and soul, to drag him away from the little business he had
painfully built up, and compel him to put on a uniform and
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obey other men's orders — well, when you saw a thing like that,
you knew about the atrocities of war!
II
Comrade Meissner went on. Worse than that — they had
taken Comrade Gerrity. And Jimmie stared. "But he's mar-
ried!"
"I know" explained Meissner, "but that ain't what counts.
What you got to have is a dependent wife. An' the Gerritys
didn't know that — Comrade Evelyn held on to her job as
stenographer, and somebody must have told on them, for the
board jacked him up, and cancelled his exemption. Of course,
it was only because he was organiser of the local; they want to
put us out of business any way they can,"
"What did Gerrity do?"
"He refused to serve, and they sent a squad of men after
him and dragged him away. They took him to Camp Sheridan,
and tried to put him in uniform, and he refused— he wouldn't
work, he wouldn't have anything to do with war. So they tried
him and sentenced him to twenty-five years in jail ; they put him
in solitary confinement, and he gets nothin' but bread and
water — they keep him chained up by his wrists a part of the
time "
"Oh! OhJ" cried Jimmie.
"Comrade Evelyn's most crazy about it. She broke down
and cried in the local, and she went around to the churches —
they have women's sewing-circles, you know, and things for the
Red Cross, and her and Comrade Mary Allen gets up and
makes speeches an' drives the women crazy. They arrested *em
once, but they turned 'em loose — ^^they didn't want it to get in
the papers."
Comrade Meissner could not have foreseen how this par-
ticular news would affect Jimmie ; Meissner knew nothing about
the strange adventure which had befallen his friend, the ama-
tory convulsion w'hieh had shaken his soul. Before Jimmie's
mind now rose the lovely face with the pert little dimples and
the halo of fluffy brown hair; the thought of Comrade Evelyn
Baskerville in distress was simply not to be endured. "Where
is she?" he cried. He had a vision of himself rushing _ forth-
with to take up the agitation; to raid the church sewing-circles.
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172 JIMMIB HIGGINS
and brave the wrath of the she-patriots; to go to jail with
Comrade Evelyn; or perhaps — who could say? — ^to put about
her, gently and reverently, a pair of fraternal and comforting
arms.
Jimmie had the temperament of the dreamer, the idealist, to
whom it is enough to want a thing to see that thing forthwith
coming into being. His imagination, stimulated by the image
of the charming stenographer, rushed forth on the wildest of
flights. He realised for the first time that he was a free man ;
while, as for Comrade Evelyn, suppose the worst were to happen,
suppose Comrade Grerrity were to perish of the diet of bread
and "water, or to be dragged into the trenches and killed —
then the sorrowing widow would be in need of some one to
uphold her, to put fraternal and comforting arms about her :
"Where is she?" Jimmie asked again; and Comrade Meis-
sner dissipated his dream by replying that she had gone ofE to
work for an organisation in New York which was agitating
for humane treatment for "conscientious objectors." Meissner
hunted up the pamphlet published by this organisation, telling
most hideous stories of the abusing of such victims of the mili-
tary frenzy; they had been beaten, tortured and starved, sub-
jected to ridicule and humiliation, in many cases dragged
before courts-martial and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty
or thirty years. Jimmie sat up a part of the night reading
these stories — with the result that once more the feeble sprout
of patriotism was squashed flat in his soul!
in
Jimmie went to the next meeting of the local. It was a
slender affair now, for some of the members were in jail, and
some in the training-camps, and some afraid to come for fear of
their jobs, and some discouraged by incessant persecution. But
the old war-horses were there— Comrade Schneider, and gentle
old Hermann Forster, and Comrade Mabel Smith, with an
account of her brother's mistreatment in the county jail, and
Comrade Mary Allen, the Quaker lady. This last was still tak-
ing it as a personal affront that America should be going into
the bloody mess, in spite of aU her denunciations and protests ;
she was even paler and thinner than when Jimmie had seen her
last — her hands trembled and her thin lips quivered as she
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spoke, you could see that she was burning up with excitement
over the monstrous wickedness of the world's events. She read
to the local a harrowing story of a boy who had registered as
a conscientous objector in New , York, and had been taken
out to a training-camp and subjected to such indignities that
he had shot himself. Comrade Mary had no children of her
own, so she had adopted these conscientious objectors, and as
she read of their experiences, her soul was convulsed with a
mingling of grief and rage.
Jimmie went back to the Empire Shops and applied for a
job. They needed thousands of men, so the "Herald" declared
— but they did not need a single one like Jimmie ! The man
to whom he applied recognised him at once, and said, "Nothin'
doin'." For the sake of being nasty, Jimmie went to the head-
quarters of the newly formed union, and asked them to force
old Abel Granitch to give him work, according to the terms of
the agreement with the government. But the union secretary,
after thinking the matter over, decided that the provision against
blacklisting applied only to men who had been out on the last
strike, not to the strikers of a couple of years before. There
was no use going out of one's way to look for trouble, said this
secretary. Jimmie went away jeering at the union, and damning
the war as heartily, as ever.
He was in no hurry to get work, having still some money
in his pocket, and being able to live cheaply with the Meissners.
He went again to watch young Forster drilling, and went home
with him and heard an argument with old Hermann. You
could see how this family had been split wide open; the old
man had ordered his traitorous son out several times, but the
mother had flung herself into the breach, pleading that the boy
was going away in a few days, and perhaps would never return.
The evening that Jimmie was- there, the paper printed a speech
of the President, outlining his purposes in the war, the terms
of justice for all peoples, a league of nations and universal
disarmament. Emil read this triumphantly, finding in it a
justification of his support of the war. Wasn't it a great part
of what the Socialists wanted?
Hermann answered grudgingly that the words were all right,
but how about the deeds ? Also, how about the other Allies —
did the President imagine he could boss them? No — ^to the
imperialists of England and France and Italy those fine words
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174 JIMMIE HIGGINS
were just bait for gudgeons ; they would serve to keep the work-
ers quiet till the war was won, and then the militarists would
kick out the American President and pick the bones of the
carcass of Germany. If they really meant to abide by the Presi-
dent's terms, why didn't they come oiit squarely and say so?
Why didn't they repudiate the verdammte secret treaties ? Why
didn't England begin her career in democracy by setting free
Ireland and India?
So it went; and Jimmie listened to both speakers, and agreed
with both alternately, experiencing more and more that distress-
ing condition of mental chaos, in which he found himself of two
absolutely contradictory and diametrically opposite points of
view!
IV
All winter long the papers had been full of talk about a
mighty German offensive that was coming in the spring. The
German people were being told all about it, and how it was to
end the war with a glorious triumph. In America nobody was
sure about the matter; the fact that the attack was boldly an-
nounced seemed good reason for looking elsewhere. Perhaps
the enemy was preparing to overwhelm Italy, and wished to
keep France and England' from sending troops to the weakened
Italian line !
But now suddenly, in the third week of March, the Germans
made a mighty rush at the British. line in front of Cambrai;
army upon army they came, and overwhelmed the defenders,
and poured through the breach. The British forces fell back —
every hour it seemed that their retreat must be turned into a
rout. Day by day, as the despatches came in, Jimmie watched
the map in front of the "Herald" office, and saw a huge gap
opening in the British line, a spear-head pointing straight into
the heart of France. Three days, four days, five days, this
ghastly splitting apart went on, and the whole world held its
breath. Even Jimmie Higgins was shaken by the news — ^he
had got enough into the war by this time to realise what a
German triumph would mean. It took a strong pacifist stom-
ach indeed to contemplate such an issue of events without flinch-
ing.
Comrade Mary Allen had such a stomach; to her religious
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JIMMIE HIGGINS WRESTLES WITH TEMPTER 175
fervour it made no difference whatever which set of robbers
ruled the world. Comrade Schneider had it also; he knew
that Grcrmany was the birth-place and cradle of Socialism, and
believed that the best fate that could befall the world was for
the Germans to conquer it, and let the German Socialists make
it into a co-operative commonwealth bye and bye. Comrade
Schneider was now openly gloating over this new proof of
German supermanity, the invincibility of German discipline.
But most of the other members of the local were awed — realising
in spite of themselves the seriousness of the plight which con-
fronted civilisation.
Jimmie would inspect the bulletin-board, and go over to
watch the drilling, and then to Tom's "BufEeteria" with Emil
Forster. He had always had an intense admiration for Emil,
and now the young designer, distressed by the strife at home,
was glad of some one to pour out his soul to. He would help
Jimmie to realise the meaning of the British defeat, the enor-
mous losses of guns and supplies, the burden it would put upon
America. For America would have to make up these losses,
America would have to drive the Germans out of every foot of
this newly conquered territory.
Jimmie would listen, and study the matter out on the map ;
and so gradually he learned to be interested in a new science,
that of military strategy. When once you have fallen u^der the
spell of that game, your soul is lost. You think of men, no
longer as human creatures, suffering, starving, bleeding, dying
in agony ; you think of them as chess-pawns ; you dispose of them
as a gambler of his chips, a merchant of his wares ; you classify
them into brigades and divisions and corps, moving them here
and there, counting off youj losses against the losses of the
enemy, putting in your reserves at critical moments, paying this
price for that objective, wiping out thousands and tens of thou-
sands of men with a sweep of your hand, a mark of your pencil,
a pressure on an electric button! Once you have learned to
take that view of life, you are no longer a human heart, to be
appealed to by pacifists and humanitarians; you are a machine,
grinding out destruction, you are a ripe apple, ready to fall
into the lap of the god of war, you are an autumn leaf, ready
to be seized by the gales of patriotism, and blown to destruction
and death.
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CHAPTER XVIII
JIUMIE HIGGINB TAKES THE PLUNGE
TIMMIE went home one evening to the Meissners, and there
** got a piece of news that delighted him. Comrade Stanke-
witz had come back from Camp Sheridan! The man to whom
he had sold his tobacco-store having failed to pay up, Stanke-
witz had got a three days' furlough to settle his business affairs.
"Say, he looks fine!" exclaimed Meissner; and so after supper
Jimmie hurried off to the little store on the corner.
Never had Jimmie been so startled by the change in a man ;
he would literally not have known his Roumanian Jewish friend.
The wrinkles which had made him look old had filled out; his
shoulders weye straight — he seemed to have been lifted a couple
of inches; he was brown, his cheeks full of colour — ^he was just
a new man! Jimmie and he had been wont to skylark a bit
in the old days, as young male creatures do, putting up their
fists, giving one another a punch or two, making as if they were
going to batter in one another's noses. They would grip hands
and squeeze, to see which could hold out longest. But now,
when they tried it, there was "nothing to if— -Jimmie got one
squeeze, and hollered quits.
"Vat you tink?" cried Stankewitz. "I veigh tventy pounds
more already — tventy pounds! They vork you like hell in
that army, but they treat you good. You don't never have
such good grub before, not anyvere you vork."
"You like it?" demanded Jimmie, in amazement.
"Sure I like it, you bet your money ! I learn lots of things
vat I didn't know before. I get myself straight on this var,
don't you ferget it."
"You believe in the war?"
"Sure I believe in it, you bet your money !" Comrade Stanke-
witz, as he spoke, poimded with an excited fist on the counter.
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JIMMIB HIGOINS TAKES THE PLUNGE 177
"Ve got to via this var, see? Ve got to beat them Yunkersl
I vould have make up my mind to that, even if I don't go in
the army — I vould have make it up ven I see vat they do vit
Russia."
"But the revolution "
"The revolution kin vait — maybe vun year, maybe two years
already. It don't do us no good to have a revolution if the
Yunkers walk over it ! No, sir — I vant them Germans put out
of Koumania und out of Russia und out of Poland — und I tell
you, in this American army you got plenty Roumanian Social-
ists, plenty Polish Socialists, und the Kaiser vill be sorry ven
he meets them in France, you bet your money !"
So Jimmie got another dose of patriotism, a heavy dose this
time; for Stankewitz was all on fire with his new conviction,
as full of the propaganda impulse as he had been when he
called himself an "anti-nationalist." He could not permit you
to differ with him — became irritated at the bare mention of
those formula-ridden members of the local who were still against
the war. They were fools — or else they were Germans ; and
Comrade Stankewitz was as ready to fight the Germans in
Leesville as in France. He got so excited arguing that he
almost forgot the cigars and. the show-cases which he had to
get rid of in two days. To Jimmie it was an amazing thing to
see this transformation — not merely the new uniform and the
new muscles of his Roumanian Jewish friend, but his sense of
certainty about the war, his loyalty to the President for the bold
deed he had done in pledging the good faith of America to
securing the freedom and the peaceful future of the harassed
and tormented subject-races of Eastern Europe.
II
Jimmie got a sheet of letter paper, and borrowed a scratchy
pen and a little bottle of ink from Mrs. Meissner, and wrote
a painfully misspelled letter to Comrade Evelyn Gerrity, nee
Baskerville, to assure her of his sympathy and undying friend-
ship. He did not tell her that he was beginning to wabble
on the war; in fact, when he thought of Jack Gerrity, chained
up to the bars of a cell-window, he un-wabbled-^^he wanted
the social revolution right away. But tli,en as he went to drop
the letter into the post-office, so that it might go more quickly.
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178 JIMMIB HIGGINS
he bought a paper and read the story of what was happening
in France. And again the war-fervour tempted him.
By desperate, frenzied fighting the British had succeeded in
' holding up for a few days the colossal German drive. But help
was needed — ^instant help, if civilisation was to be saved. The
cry came across the seas — America must send assistance — ^guns,
shells, food, and above all else men. Jimmie's blood was stirred;
he had an impulse to answer the call, to rush to the rescue of
those desperate men, crouching in shell-holes and fighting day
and night for a week without rest. If only Jimmie could have
gone right to them ! If only it had not been necessary for him
to' go to a training-camp and submit himself to a military mar-
tinet ! If only it had not been for war-profiteers, and crooked
politicians, and lying, predatory newspapers, and all the other
enemies of democracy at home !
Jimmie dropped his letter in the slot, and turned to leave
the post-oflBce, when his eye was caught by a sign on the wall —
a large sign, in bold, black letters: "YOUR COUNTEY NEEDS
YOU!" Jimmie thought it was more "Liberty ~Bond" busi-
ness ; they had teen after him several times, trying to separate
him from his earnings, but needless to say they hadn't succeeded.
However, he stopped out of curiosity, and read that men were
needed to go to France — skilled men of all sorts. There was a
long list of the trades, everything you could think of — carpenters,
plumbers, electricians, lumbermen, stevedores, railwaymen,
. laundrymen, cooks, warehousemen — so on for several columns.
Jimmie came to "machinists," and gave a guilty start; then
he came to "motor-cycle drivers" and "motor-cycle repkirers"
— and suddenly he clenched his hands. A wild idea flashed
over him, causing such excitement that he could hardly read
on. Why should he not go to France — he, Jimmie Higgins!
He was a man without a tie in the world — as free as the winds
that blew across the ocean! And he was looking for a job-
why not take one of these ?
It was a way he might share all the adventures, see the
marvellous sights of which he had been reading and hearing, and
without the long delay in a training-camp, without waiting to
be bossed about by a military martinet ! Jimmie looked to see
what pay was offered ; fifty-one dollars a month and an "allow-
ance" for board and expenses. At the bottom of the sign he
read the words : "Why not work for your Uncle Sam?" Jimmie
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JIMMIB HIGGINS TAKES THE PLUNGE 179
as it happened was in a fairly friendly mood towards his
Uncle Sam at that moment ; so he thought, why not give him a
chance as a boss? After all, wasn't that what every Socialist
was aiming at — ^to be an employe of the community, a servant
of the public, rather than of some private profiteer?
Ill
Jinunie went to the window to inquire, and the clerk told
him that the "war-labour recruiting office" was at the corner
of Main and Jefferson. He came to the corner designated, and
there in a vacant store was a big recruiting sign, "War Labour
Wanted," and a soldier in khaki walking up and down. A
week ago Jimmie could not have been bribed to enter a place
presided over by a soldier; but he had learned from Emil and
Stankewitz that a soldier might be a human being, so he went
up and said, "Hello."
"Hello, yourself," said the soldier, looking him over with
an appraising eye.
"If I was to hire here, when would I start for France ?"
"To-night," said the soldier.
"Youkiddin'me?"
"They ain't payin' me to kid people," said the other; and
then, "What's your hurry?"
"Well, I don't want to be stalled in a trainin' camp."
"You won't be stalled if you know your business. What
are you?"
"I'm a machinist; I've repaired bicycles, an' I know a bit
about motor-cycles."
"Walk in," said the soldier, and led the way, and presented
Jimmie to a sergeant at the desk. "Here's a machinist," he
said, "and he's in a hurry to get to work. Eunnin' away from
his wife, may be."
"There's a bunch of men starting for the training-camp
to-night," said the sergeant.
"Trainin'-camp ?" echoed Jimmie. "I want to go to France."
The other smiled. "You wouldn't expect us to send you
till w6'd tried you out, would you?"
"No, I suppose not," replied Jimmie, dubiously. He was
on his guard against tricks. Suppose they were to enlist him as
a worker, and then make him fight !
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180 JIMMIE HIGGINS
The other went on. "If you're competent, you'll get to
France all right. We need men over there in a hurry, and we
won't waste your time,"
"Well now," said Jimmie, "I dunno's you'll want me at
all when you hear about me. I'm a Socialist."
"Thought 3'ou was a machinist," countered the ser-
geant.
"I'm a Socialist, too. I was in the strike at the Empire a
coupla years ago, and they blacklisted me. I can't get no work
in the big places here."
"Well," said the sergeant, "it's a good town for you to quit,
I should say."
"You want a man like that?" persisted Jimmie.
"Whet we want is men that know machinery, andll dig in
and work like hell to beat the Kaiser. If you're that sort,
we don't ask your religion. We've got a bunch that start to-
night."
"Holy smoke !" said Jimmie. He had thought he would have
time to ask questions and to think matters over, time to see his
friends and say good-bye. But the sergeant" was so eiBcient
and business-like ; he took it so completely for granted that any
man who was worth his salt must be anxious to help wallop the
Him ! Jimmie, who had come in full of hurry, was now ashamed
to back water, to hem and haw, to say, "I dunno; I ain't so
sure." And so the trap snapped on him — ^the monster of Mili-
tarism grabbed him !
IV
"Sit down," said the sergeant, and the anxious little Socialist
took the chair beside the desk.
" Whaf s your name ?"
"James Higgins."
"Your address?"
"I'm just stayin' with a friend."
"The friend's address?" and so on : where had Jimmie worked
last, what work had he done, what references had he tp offer.
Jimmie could not help grinning as he realised how his record
must sound to a military martinet. He had been fired and
blacklisted at the motor-truck factory in Ironton, his last job;
he had been fired and blacklisted at the Empire Shops; he had
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES THE PLUNGE 181
been arrested and sent to jail for soap-boxing on the streets of
Leesville ; he had been arrested in the bomb-conspiracy of Kumme
and Heinrich von Hoist. The sergeant entered each of these
items without comment, but when he came to the last, he stared
up at the applicant.
"I didn't have nothin' to do with it," declared Jimmie.
"You got to prove that to'ine," said the sergeant.
"I proved it once," replied Jimmie.
"Who to?"
"Mr. Harrod, the agent of the Department of Justice here."
The other took up the telephone and called the post ofiBce
building. Jimmie listened to one half of the conversation —
would Mr. Harrod look up the record of James Higgins, who
was applying for enlistment in the Mechanical Department of
the Motor Corps? There was some delay — Mr. Harrod was
talking — while Jimmie sat, decidedly nervous; but it was all
right apparently — ^the sergeant hung up the receiver, and re-
marked reassuringly, "He says you're just a dub. He told
me to congratulate you on having got some sense."
Jimmie made the most of this more than dubious statement,
and proceeded to answer questions as to his competence. Was
there anybody at the Empire who could certify as to this ? The
sergeant was about to call up the Empire Shops, but recon-
sidered; if Jimmie had actually worked in a machine-shop and
in a bicycle-shop, they would surely be able to find something
for him in the army. In an hour of such desperate need they
took most every one. "How tall are you?" demanded the ser-
geant, and added, "Weight don't matter so much, because we'll
feed you."
The ofiice of the medical examiner was upstairs in the same
building, and Jimmie was escorted upstairs, and invited to re-
move his coat and shirt, and have his chest measured, and his
heart and lungs listened to, and his teeth counted, and his nose
peered into, and a score of such like stunts. He had things
wrong with him, of course, but not too many for army purposes,
it appeared. The doctor jotted down the figures on a sheet
and signed it, after which Jimmie and the soldier went back to
the recruiting-office.
And now suddenly the little Socialist found himself with
an enlistment-paper before him, and a wet pen in his hand.
He had never once been asked: "Is your mind made up? Do
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182 JIMMIE HIGGINS
yon really mean to take this irrevocable step ?" No, the sergeant
had taken it for granted that Jimmie meant business. He had
done all this inquiring and writing down of information, this
weighing and measuring and what not, and now he sat with a
stern, compelling eye fixed on his victim, as much as to say:
"Do you mean to tell me that I've done all that for nothing?"
If Jimmie had actually refused to sign his name, what a blast
of scorn would have withered him!
So Jimmie did not even stop to read all the paper; he
signed. "And now," said the sergeant, "the train leaves at
nine-seventeen this evening. I'll be there to give you your
ticket. Don't fail to be on hand. You understand you're under
military discipline now." There was a new tone in these last
words, and Jimmie quaked inwardly, and went out with a sort
of hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He rushed away to tell Comrade Stankewitz, who hugged
him with delight, and shouted that they would meet in France !
Then he went to tell Emil Forster, who was equally glad. He
found himself with an impulse to hunt up Comrade Schneider
and tell him. Jimmie discovered in himself a sudden and
curious antagonism to Schneider; he wanted to have matters
out with him, to say to him : "Wake up, you mutt — forget that
fool dream of yours that the Kaiser's goin' to win the war!"
There were others Jimmie thought of, upon whom he would
not call. Comrade Mary Allen, for example — he would let her
get the news after he was out of the reach of her sharp tongue !
Also he thought of Comrade Evelyn; he might never see her
again; if he did see her, she might refuse to speak to him!
But Jimmie repressed the pang of dismay which this realisation
brought him. He was going to war, and the longings and de-
lights of love must be put to one side !
He went to the Meissners for supper, and broke the news to
them. He had expected protests and arguments, and was sur-
prised by the lack of them. Had the little bottler-packer been
impressed by the experiences of Comrade Stankewitz ? Or could
it be that he was afraid to voice his fuU mind to Jimmie — ^just
as Jimmie had been afraid in the case of Emil Forster ?
Jimmie had some commissions to entrust to the Meissners;
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JIMMIE HIGGINH TAKES THE PLUNGE 183
he would leave with them the diary of "Wild Bill," which he
had hung on to, but which seemed hardly the sort of literature
to take on a transport.
"Sure," assented Meissner. "Besides, the subs might get it."
And Jimmie gave a sudden start. By heck! It was the
first time the idea had occurred to him. He would have to pass
through the barred zone! He might be in some fighting after
all! He might never get to France! "Say!" he exclaimed.
"That ocean must be cold this time of year !"
For a moment he wavered. Surely it would have been more
sensible to wait till later in the season, when the consequences
of a plunge overboard would be less distressing! But Jimmie
remembered the armies, locked in their grip of death; never
would despatch-riders need their motor-cycles more urgently
than now ! Also Jimmie remembered the sergeant at the recruit-
ing-ofSce. "You understand, you're under military discipline
now !" He set his jaw in a grim resolve. The "subs" be damned,
he would go and do his part ! Already he felt the thrill of his
responsibility in this mighty hour of history; he was a military
man, with a stern duty to do, with the destinies of nations de-
pen^g upon his behaviour!
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CHAPTEE XIX
JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAEI
'T'HERE were seven fellows who boarded the train that eve-
*• ning, under the temporary charge of a blacksmith from the
nearby country. At seven o'clock next morning they presented
their papers at the entrance-gate of the training-camp, and
under the escort of a soldier were marched down the main street,
hanging on to their bundles and suit-cases, and staring about
them at the sights. ,
It was a city, inhabited by some forty thousand men, on a
site which a year ago had been waste scrub-land. Long rows
of wooden buildings stretched in every direction — barracks,
dining-rooms, study-rooms, offices, store-houses — ^with great
stretches of exercise and training grounds between. Just to see
this city, with its swarming population of young men, all in
uniform, erect, eager, well set-up and vivid with health, every
man of them busy, and every man seemingly absorbed in his
job — that alone was a worth-while experience. It was a new
kind of city — a city without a loafer, without a drunkard,
without a parasite. The seven workingmen from Leesville felt
suddenly slouchy and disgraced, with their ill-fitting civilian
clothes and their miscellaneous bundles and suit-cases.
The first thing they did with the new arrivals was to make
them clean, to fumigate and vaccinate them. In a Socialist
local one meets all sorts of eccentrics, the lunatic-fringe of the
movement, and so it happened that Jimmie had listened to a
tirade against the diabolical practice of inoculation, which
caused more deadly diseases than it was supposed to prevent.
But the medical officers of this camp did not stop to ask Jim-
mie's conclusions on that vital subject; they just told him to
roll up the sleeve of his left arm, and proceeded to wipe his
skin clean and scratch it with a needle.
1S4
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JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAKI 185
And then came the tailor, to do him up in khaki. This also
was something the little machinist had not bargained for; he
had taken it as a matter of course that he would be allowed to
work for Uncle Sam in any old clothes, just as he had done for
Abel Granitch. But no — he must have an outfit, complete even
to a tooth-brush, which they would show him how to use. Hav-
ing been done up neat and tight in khaki, with a motor-wheel on
his sleeve to show his branch of the service, he stood and
looked at himself in the glass, experiencing a demoralising and
unworthy excitement. He was every bit as handsome as Com-
rade Stankewitz ! When he walked down the street, would the
girls giggle, and turn to look at him, as they did at the sedate
and proper Comrade Emil? So the meshes of Militarism were
being woven about the soul of Jimmie Higgins.
II
Jimmie was in quarantine, not allowed to go out of camp on
account of his typhoid and other vaccinations. There was
enough about the place to have interested him ; but, alas, he be-
came suddenly very 'sick, and was terrified to realise that the
opponent of inoculation must have been right. His health had
been undermined forever, he would suffer from a dozen obscure
diseases ! He went to the hospital, miserable in body and still
more miserable in mind; but in a couple of days he begfin to
feel better, and listened to the nurses, who told him cheerfully
that everybody felt that way for -a bit. Then he got up, and had
several free days in which to complete his recovery — days which
he spent wandering about the camp, watching the fascinating
sights.
It was like a circus with hundreds of rings. The drilling
and marching he had seen in the Leesville square were here
going on wholesale. Hundreds of groups were being put through
squad-drill and the manual, while other groups were having
special kinds of exercises— climbing up walls, digging trenches,
making roads, shooting at targets. It rained every other day,
and the ground was a morass, but no one paid the least attention
to that; the men came in plastered with mud, and steaming
like lard-vats. They seemed to enjoy it; nothing ever inter-
fered with their bantering and jokes.
Jimmie watched them with alternating moods of curiosity
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186 JIMMIE HIGGINS
and horror ; for the things that were done here brought the war,
with its infinite and multiform wickedness, before his very eyes.
Here was a group of men being taught to advance under fire;
crawling on their bellies on the ground, jumping from one hum-
mock to another, flinging themselves down and pretending to
fire. A man in front, supposed to have a machine-gun, was
shouting when he had "got" them. Now they unslung their little
trenching-tools, and began to burrow themselves like wood-
chucks into the ground. "Dig, you sons o' guns, dig!" the
officer would shout. "Keep your head down. Smith! Make
the dirt fly ! Put the jazz into it ! That's the stuff !"
Jimmie had never watched football practice, so he had no con-
ception of the efforts to which men could be goaded by "coach-
ing." It was abhorrent — yet also it was fascinating, the spell
of it got hold of him. He saw what these men were doing ;
they were learning to act in masses, to act with paralysing and
terrific force. Whatever it was they did, they did with the
smash of a battering-ram. You saw the fire in their eyes, the
grim, set look on their faces; you knew that they were not
going to war with any hesitations or divided minds.
You would move, over a rise in the ground, and come upon
a bunch of them at bayonet-practice. You didn't require imagi-
nation to get the hang of this; they had dummies made of
leather, and they rushed at these figures, hacking, stabbing —
and here was the most amazing part of it, shouting with rage.
Actually, the officers taught them to yell, to snarl, to work up
their feelings to a fury ! It was blood-curdling — Jimmie turned
away from it sick. It was just what he had been arguing for
three years and a half — you had to make yourself into a wild
beast in order to go to war !
Also Jimmie watched the target-ranges,' from which came
all day a rattle of shots, like the whir of many typewriters.
Companies of men came marching, and spread themselves out
along the firing-steps, and under the direction of instructors
proceeded to contribute their quota to the noise. Over by the
targets were others who kept score and telephoned the results ; so
all day long, winter or summer, rain or shine, men were learning
to kill their fellows, mechanically, as if it were a matter of
factory routine. At other ranges were moving targets j where
sharp-shooters were acquiring skill; you noticed that their tar-
gets were never birds and' deer, as at the shooting-galleries
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JJMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAKI 187
which Jimmie had seen at the beaches and at Socialist picnics.
No, they were the heads or bodies of men, and each body painted
a greenish grey, matching the uniforms of the enemy.
Ill
So day by day Jimmie lived with the idea of killing, con-
fronting the grim and ferocious face of war. He had thought
that repairing motor-cycles would be pretty much the same
anywhere you did it; but he found that it was one thing to
repair motor-cycles to be ridden by errand-boys and working-
men out for a holiday with their sweethearts, and another and
entirely different thing to repair them for fighting-men and
despatch-couriers. Jimmie was driven more insistently than
ever to make up his mind about this war. It was every day
less easy for him to hold two contradictory sets of opinions.
All the men he now met were of one opinion, and by no
possibility to be persuaded to consider any other. Jimmie found
that he could get them to agree that after this war for democracy
there would be vast changes in this world, the people would
nevermore let themselves be hoodwinked and exploited as they
had ; he found that he could interest them in the idea of having
the government run the great industries, producing food and
clothing for the people as it was now producing them for the
troops. But when he tried to give this programme the name of
Socialism, then the trouble began. Weren't Socialists the loons
who wanted to have America "lay down" like Russia? The
premise from which all discussion started with these men was
that America was going to win the war; if you tried to hint
that this matter could so much as be hesitated over, you met,
first sharp mockery, and then angry looks, and advice to go
and take a pill and get the Hun poison out of your system.
Nor was there any use trying to talk about the dangers of
militarism. These men knew all about the dangers of militar-
ism — ^for the Kaiser. The man who is at the butt-end of a
gim, and knows how to aim it so as to pick off a cat at six hun-
dred yards — that man will let the cat do the worrying. So,
at any rate, ,the matter seemed to these husky young recruits,
who were learning to march in the mud and sleep in the rain and
chew up carpet-tacks and grind Huns into leber-wurst. They
were putting through the job with a fierce and terrifying gaiety;.
13
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188 JIMMIE HIGGINS
they exulted in their toughness, they called themselves "griz-
zlies" and "mountain cats" and what not ; they sang wild songs
about their irritability, their motto was "Treat 'em rough!"
It was a scary atmosphere for a dreamer and utopian; Jimmie
Higgins shrank into himself, afraid even to reach about for some
fellow-Socialist with whom he might exchange opinions about
the events of the outside world.
IV
In the evening there were picture-shows, concerts, lectures —
nearly all dealing with the war, of course. They were held in
hig halls built by the Y, M. C. A., an organisation for which
Jimmie had a hearty contempt. He regarded it as a device of
the exploiting classes to teach submission to their white-collar
slaves. But nobody could live in a training-camp without being
aware of the "Y." Jimmie was invited t6 a lecture, and out
of boredom he went.
It was Sergeant Ebenezer Collins, imported from Flanders
to tell the "doughboys" about the wiles of the Hun. Sergeant
Collins spoke a weird language which Jimmie had never heard
before, and not all of which he could understand; it served,
however, to convince him that the sergeant was genuine — ^for
nobody could possibly have faked such a form of utterance!
"When yer gow inter Wipers naow," said the orator, "yer see
owld, grye-headed lydies an' bybies like little wite gowsts, an'
yer sye ter them, 'Gow a-wye, the 'Fn may be 'ere ter-dye,' but
they wown't gow, they got now 'omes ter gow ter !" /
But in spite of the difiBculties of a foreign language, you
realised that this cockney sergeant was a man. For one thing
he had a sense of humour ; he had kept it in the midst of terror
and death — ^kept it standing all night in trenches full of icy
cold water, with icy cold water pouring down his collar. Also
the sergeant had a sense of honour — there were things he could
not |do to a 'Un, even though the 'Un might do them to him.
Jimmie had listened to excited debates in Local LeesviUe, as
to whether the Allies were really any better than the Germans;
whether, for example, the Allies would have sunk passenger-
liners with women and babies on board, if it had been neces-
sary in order to win the war. Sergeant Collins did not debate
this question, he just revealed himself as a fighting man. "It's
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^IMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAKI 189
because we plye gymes, an' they down't," he remarked. "If
yer plye gymes, yer now 'ow to plye fair."
For three years and eight months Jimmie had been hearing
stories about atrocities, and for three years and eight months
he had been refusing to believe them. But now the cockney
sergeant told about a pal who had been wounded in a ni^t
attack by the 'Tins, and the sergeant had tried to carry him
back and Had had to leave him; towards dawn they made a
counter-attack, and retook the village, and there they found the
sergeant's pal, still alive, in spite of the fact that he was spiked
to , a barn-door with bayonets through his hands and feet.
When that story was told, you heard a low murmur run through
the room, and saw a couple of thousand young men clenching
their hands and setting their jaws, getting ready for their big
job in France.
Just now, said the sergeant, the Germans were making the
most desperate attack of the war. The British were at bay,
with their backs against the wall. It was upon the men in the
training-camps of America that the decision rested; there was
no one but them to save the day, to save the rest of the world
from falling under the hoofs of the Hun monster. Would they
do their part? Jimmie Higgins heard the answer from those
two thousand young throats, and the pacifist in him shrunk
deeper out of sight.
But the pacifist was never entirely silent. War was wrong !
War was wrong! It was a wicked and brutal way for human
beings to settle their disagreements. If human beings were not
yet intelligent enough to listen to reason — well, even so, that
didn't make war right! A man had to have principles, and to
stand by them — ^how else could he make the world come his
way? Yes, war was wrong! But, meantime, war was here;
and calling it wrong did not put a stop to it ! What the devil
was a fellow to do?
As soon as Jimmie was able to work, they took him to the
part of the camp where a motdr-cycle division was training.
Here was a big repair shop, with plenty of damaged machines
upon which he might display his skill. He did not know the
particular engine they used here, but he soon learned the secrets
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190 JIMMIE HIGGINS
of it, and satisfied the officers in charge that he knew how to
take one apart and put it together again, to replace and mend
tires, to clean ball-bearings and true crooked rims. "You're
all right," they said. "And you're needed like the devil over
there. You won't have to wait long."
There was a platform where the trains came into the camp,
and every few hours now there came a long train to be loaded
with men. Jimmie got his notice, and packed his kit and
answered roll-call and took his place; at sun-down of the next
day he was detrained at a "mobilisation-camp" — another huge
city, described in the cautious military fashion as "Somewhere
in New Jersey," though everybody within a hundred miles knew
its exact location. Here was a port, created for the purposes
of war, with docks and wharves where the fleets of transports
were loaded with supplies and troops. The vessels sailed in
fleets, carrying thirty or forty thousand men at once. From
the port of New York alone there was going out a fleet like this
every week — the answer of America to the new drive of the Hun.
One met here, not merely the fighting-men, but the forces
of all the complicated service behind the lines : gangs of lumber-
men from the far Northwest, who were to fell the forests of
France and make them into railroad-ties and tinibers for
trenches; railway-men, miners, and construction-gangs, engi-
neers and signalmen, bridge-builders and road-makers, telephone-
linemen and operators, the drivers of forty thousand motor-
cars and of five thousand lo^comotives ; bakers and cooks, menders
of shoes and of clothing, farmers to till the soil of France, and
doctors and nurses to tend its sick and wounded. There was
nothing which the skill and knowledge of a nation of a hundred
million people had to offer that was not gathered into this vast
encampment. All the youngest and keenest were here, eager
to do their part, laughing at danger, tingling with excitement, on
tiptoe with curiosity and delight. Jimmie Higgins, watching
them, found his doubts melting like an April snow-storm. How
could any man see this activity and not be caught up in it?
How could he be with these laughing boys and not share their
mood?
Jimmie himself had not had a merry childhood, he did not
know the youth of his own country — the breezy, slangy, rather
shocking, utterly irrepressible youth of this democratic world.
If there was anything they did not know — well, they did not
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JIMMIE HIGGINS PUTS ON KHAKI 191
know it; if there was anything they could not do — ^their motto
was: "Show me!" Jimmie, not having been to school, found
himself having a hard time with their weird slang. When one
of these fellows hailed you, "Hey, pimp !" it did not necessarily
mean that he did not like yoU; when he greeted you, "Hey,
sweetness !" it did not mean that he felt for you any overpower-
ing affection. If he referred to his officer as "hard-boiled," he
did not have in mind that this officer had been exposed to the
action of water at 213 degrees Fahrenheit; he merely meant
that the officer was a snob. When he' remarked, "Good-night P'
in broad daylight, he meant you to understand that he disagreed
with you.
He disagreed frequently and explosively with Jimmie Hig-
gins, trying to point out a difference between the German rulers
and the German people! Such subtleties had no interest for
these all-knowing boys. When Jimmie persisted, they called
him a "nut," a "poor cheese"; they told, him that he was
"cuckoo," that his "trolley was twisted"; they made whirling
motions with their hands to indicate that he had "wheels in his
head," they made flapping motions over him to signify that
there were "bats in his belfry." So Jimmie subsided, and
•let them talk their own talk — imploring one another to "have
a heart," or to "get wise," or to "make it snappy," or to "cut
out the rough stuff." And he would sit and listen while they
sang with zest a song telling about what they were going to
do when they got to France :
Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song,
Sing it with a spirit that will move the world along,
Sing it as we love to sing it, just two million strong —
While we are canning the Kaiser.
Chobus :
Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We're on the job to-day!
Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We'll seal you so you'll stay!
We'll put you up in ginger in the good old Yankee way —
While we are canning the Kaiser.
Hear the song we're singing on the shining roads of France;
Hear the Tommies cheering, and see the Poilus prance;
Africanders and Kanucks and Scots without their pants —
While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)
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192 JIMMIB HIGGINS
Bring the guns from Bethlehem, by way of old New York;
Bring the beans from Boston, and don't leave out the pork ;
Bring a load of soda-pop, and pull the grape-juice cork —
While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)
Come you men from Dixieland, you lumberjacks of Maine;
Come you Texas cowboys, and you 'farmers of the plain;
Florida to Oregon, we boast the Yankee strain —
While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)
Now we've started on the job, we mean to put it through ;
Ship the kings and kaisers all, and make the world anew;
Clear the way for common folk, for men like me and you —
While we are canning the kaiser.
Chobus :
Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We're on the job to-day!
Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We'll seal you so you'll stay!
We'll put you up in ginger in the good old Yankee way-
While we are canning the Kaiser.
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CHAPTEK XX
JIMMIK HIGGIXB TAKES A SWIK
V/'OU did not stop very long in the mobilisation-camp, for
* the arrival of your train was timed with the arrival of the
ship on which you were to sail. You had a meal, sometimes
you slept a night, then you marched to the docks. Nor was
there much of the traditional "sweet sorrow" about the de-
parture of these great fleets; the weeping mothers and sisters
had hot been notified to be present, and the ladies of the canteen-
service had given coifee and sandwiches, cigarettes and choco-
late, to so many tens of thousands that they had forgotten about
tears. It was like the emigration of a nation; the part of
America that was now on the other side was so large that nobody
would need to feel homesick.
Jimmie's embarking was done at night ; on the long, covered
piers lighted by arc-lights, the soldiers set down their kits and
stood about, munching food, singing songs, and keeping one
another's wits sharpened for battle. They filtered on board,
and then without a light or a sound the vessel stole down the
long stretches of the harbour, and out to sea. One never knew
at what hour the enemy submarines might attempt a raid on
the American side, so the entrance to the harbour was mined
and blockaded, a narrow passage being opened when the ships
passed through.
When morning came the convoy was out at sea, amid glorious
green rollers, and Jimmie Higgins was lying in his narrow
berth, cursing the fates that had lured him, the monster of
Militarism into whose clutches he had been snared. The army
medical service had a serum to prevent small-pox and another
to prevent typhoid, but they had nothing for sea-sickness as
yet; so for the first four days of the trip Jimmie wished that
a submarine would come and end his misery once for all.
193
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194 JIMMIE HIGGINS
At last, however, he came on deck, an utterly humbled So-
cialist agitator, asking only a corner to lie in the sunshine —
preferably where he could not see the Atlantic surges, the very
thought of which turned him inside out. But gradually he
found his feet again, and ate with permanence, and looked out
over the water and saw the other vessels of the convoy, weirdly
painted with many-coloured splotches, . steaming in the shape of
a gigantic V, with two cruisers in front, and another on each
side, and another bringing up the rear. Day and night the
look-outs kept watch, and the wig-wag men and the heliograph
men were busy, and the wireless buzzed its warnings of the
movements of the underwater foe. The U-boats had not yet
got a transport, but they had made several tries, and every one
knew that they would continue trying. Twice a day the clang-
ing of bells sounded from one end of the vessel to the other, and
the crews rushed to the boat-drill; each passenger had his
number, and unless he was ill in his berth he had to take his
specified place, with his life-preserver strapped about his waist.
The passengers played cards, and read and sang and sky-
larked' about the decks. Up on the top deck, to which Jimmie
was not invited, were officers, also a number of women and
girls belonging to the hospiital and ambulance units. "Janes"
was the term by which the soldier-boys described these latter;
you could see they were a good sort of "Janes," serious and
keen for their job, looking businesslike and impressive in their
uniforms with many pockets. Among them were suffragists,
answering the taunt of the other sex, showing that in war as
well as in peace the world needed them ; it had to find a place
for them on board the most, badly crowded transport.
Never having been on an ocean-liner before, Jimmie did
not know that it was crowded; it did not trouble him that there
was hardly room for a walk on the decks. He watched the
sea and the great white gull? and the piebald ships ; he watched
the crew at work, and got acquainted with his fellow-passengers.
Before long he found a driver of an ambulance who was a
Socialist; also an I. W. W. from the Oregon lumber-camps.
Even the "wobblies," it appeared, had come to hate the Kaiser;
a bunch of them were in Eranpe, and more would have come,
if the government had not kept them cross by putting their
leaders into jail. An army-officer with some sense had gone into
the spruce-country of the far North-west, and had appealed *o
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES A SWIM 195
the patriotism of the men, giving them decent hours and wages,
and recognizing their unions; as a result, even the dreaded
I. W. W. organization had turned tame, and all the lumber-jacks
had pitched in to help in "canning the Kaiser"J
11
The fleet was nearing the submarine-zone and it was time
for the convoying destroyers to arrive. Everybody was peering
out ahead, and at last a cry ran along the decks: "There they
are!" Jimmie made out a speck of smoke upon the horizon,
and saw it turn into a group of swiftly flying vessels. He
marvelled at the skill whereby they had been able to find the
transports on this vast and trackless sea; he marvelled at the
slender vessels with their four low, rakish stacks. These sea-
terriers were thin skins of steel, covering engines of enormous
power; they tore through the water, literally with the speed
of an express-train, leaving a boiling white wake behind. See-
ing them rock and swing from side to side in the waves, hurled
this way and that, you marvelled that human beings could live
in them and not be jerked to pieces. Jimmie never tired of
observing them, nor did they tire of racing in and out between
the vessels of the* convoy, weaving patterns of foam, the men on
their decks watching, watching for the secret foe.
Every one on board the transports of course was on the
alert. Jimmie in his secret heart was scared stiff, but he did
not reveal it to these mocking soldier-boys, who made merry
over German U-boats as they did over sauerkraut and pretzels
and limburger and "wienies," otherwise known as "hot dogs."
Actually, Jimmie found, they were hoping to encounter a sub-
marine ; not to be hit, of course, but to have the torpedo pass
within a foot or two, so that they might have something thrilling
to write to the folks at home !
There came storms, and blinding sheets of rain across the
water, and mists that hid everything from view: but still the
little sea-terriers dashed here and there, winding their foam
wakes about the fleet, by night as well as by day. How they
managed to avoid collisions in the dark was a mystery beyond
imagining; Jimmie lay awake, picturing one of them plunging
like a sharp spear into the rows of bunks in the steerage where
he had been stowed. But when morning dawned, his berth was
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tinspeared, and the watch-dogs of the sea were still weaving their
patterns.
It was a day of high wind, with clouds and fitful bursts of
sunshine in which the waves shone white and sparkling. Jimmie
was standing by the rail with his "wobbly" friend, watching the
white-caps, when his companion called his attention to a sparkle
that seemed to persist, hitting one in the eye. They pointed it
out to others, and as the ord^s were strict to report anything
out of the way, some one shouted to the nearest look-out. A
cry went over the ship, and there was hasty wigwagging of
the signalmen, and three of the destroyers leaped away, like
hounds on the chase.
There were some on board who had glasses, and they cried
out that it was a black object, and finally reported it a raft
with people on it. Later, when Jimmie reached port, he heard
an explanation of the sparkle which had caught his eye — a woman
on the raft had a little pocket-mirror, and had used this to flash
the sun's rays upon the vessel, until at last she had attracted
attention.
Those who had glasses were mostly on the upper deck, so
Jimmie did not see anything of the rescue; the transports of
course did not swerve or delay, for their orders forbade all
altruisms. Even the little destroyers would not approach the
raft until they had scoured the sea for miles about, and then
they did not stop entirely, but slid by and tossed ropes to the
people on the raft, dragging them aboard one by one. A sea-
man standing near Jimmie explained this procedure; it ap-
peared that the submarines were accustomed to lurk near rafts
and life-boats, preying upon those vessels which came to their
rescue. Distressed castaways were bait — "live bait," explained
the seaman ; the U-boats would lurk about for days, sometimes
for a week, watching the people in the life-boats struggle against
the waves, watching them die of exposure and starvation and
thirst, watching them signal frantically, waving rags tied onto
oars, shouting and praying for help. One by one the castaways
would perish, and when the last of them was gone, the XT-boat
would steid away. "Dead bait's no good," explained the seaman.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES A SWIM 197
ni
This mariner, Toms by name, came from Cornwall; for the
transport was British, and so also the convoying war-ships
Jimmie's fate had bien entrusted to "perfidious Albion" ! Seven
times this Toms had been torpedoed and seven times rescued,
and he had most amazing tales to tell to landlubbers, and a
new light to throw on a subject which our Socialist landlubber
had been debating for several years — the torpedoing of passenger-
vessels with women and children on board. Somehow Jimmie
found it a different proposition when he heard of particular
women and children, how they looked and what they said, and
what happened when they took to open boats in midwinter, and
the boats filled up with water, and the children turned blue and
then white, and were rescued with noses and ears and hands
and feet frozen off.
Jimmie was a workingman, and understood the language of
workingmen, their standards and ways of looking at life. And
here was a workingman; not a conscious Socialist, to be sure,
but a union man, sharing the Socialist distrust of capitalists
and rulers. What this weather-bitten toiler of the sea told to
Jimmie, Jimmie was prepared to understand and believe; so he
learned, what he had refused to learn from prostitute newspapers,
that there was a code of sea-manners and sea-morals, a law of
marine decency, which for centuries had been unbroken save
by pirates and savages. The men who went down to the sea in
ships were a class of their own, with instincts born of the
peculiar cruelties of the element they defied — instincts which
broke across all barriers of nations and races, and feven across
the hatreds of war.
But now these sea-laws had been defied, and the Hun who
had defied them had placed himself outside the pale of the
human race. In the souls of seamen there had been generated
against him a hatred of peculiar and unique ferocity ; they hunted
him as men hunt vipers and rattle-snakes. The union to which
this Toms belonged had pledged itself, not merely for the war,
but for years afterwards, that its members would not sail in
German ships, nor in any ship in which a German sailed, nor
in any ship which sailed to a German port, nor which carried
German goods. It had refused to carry Socialist delegates de-
siring to attend international conferences with German Social-
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198 JIMMIE HIGGINS
ists; it had refused to carry for any purpose labour leaders
whom it considered too mercifully disposed towards Germany.
When Jimmie learned this, you can imagine the arguments,
Continuing far into the night! Quite a crowd gathered about,
and they gave it to the little Socialist hot and heavy. The
upshot of it was that somebody reported him, and the officer in
command of his "motor-unit" read him a stern lecture. He
was not here to settle peace-terms, but to do his work and hold
his tongue. Jimmie, awed by the fangs and claws of the mon-
ster of Militarism, answered, "Yes, sir," and went away and
sulked by himself the whole day, wishing that the submarines
might get this transport, with everybody on board except two
Socialists and one "wobbly."
IV
It was the morning of the day they were due in port.
Everybody wore life-preservers, and stood at his station; when
suddenly came a yell, and a chorus of shouts from the side of
the ship, and Jimmie rushed to the rail, and saw a white wake .
coming like a swift fish directly at the vessel. "Torpedo !" was
the cry, and men stood rooted to the spot. Far back, where the
white streak started, you could see a periscope, moving slowly;
there was a volley of cracking sounds, and the water all about
it leaped high, and the little sea-terriers rushed towards it,
firing, and getting ready their deadly depth-bombs. But of
all that Jimmie got only a glimpse; there came a roar like the
opening of hell in front of him ; he was thrown to the deck, half-
stunned, and a huge fragment of the rail of the vessel whirled
past his head, smashing into a stateroom behind him.
The ship was in an uproar; people rushing here and there,
the members of the crew leaping to get away the boats. Jimmie
sat up and stared about him, and the first thing he saw was his
friend the "wobbly," lying in a pool of blood, with a great gash
in his head.
Suddenly somebody began to sing: "Oh, say, can you see
by the dawn's early light " Jimmie had always hated that
song, because jingoes and patrioteers used it as an excuse to
bully and humiliate radicals who did not jump to their feet
with sufficient alacrity. But now it was wonderful to see the
effect of the song; everybody joined, and the soldier-hoys and
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES A SWIM 199
workingmen and nurses and lady ambulance-drivers, no matter
how badly scared, recalled that they were part of an army on
the way to war. Some helped the crews to get the boats into
the water; others bound up the wounds of the injured, and
carried them across the rapidly slanting, decks.
The great ship was going down. It was horrible to realise —
this mighty structure, this home for two weeks of several
thousand people, this moving hotel with its sleeping-berths,
its dining-saloons, its kitchens with lunch ready to be eaten, its
mighty engines and its cargo of every kind of necessity and
comfort for an army — all was about' to plunge to the bottom of
the sea! Jimmie Higgins had read about the torpedoing of
scores of ocean-liners, but in all that reading he had learned
less about the matter than he learned in a few minutes while he
clung half -dazed to a stay-rope, and watched the life-boats swing
out over the sides and disappear.
"Women first !" was the cry ; but the women would not go
until the wounded had been taken, and this occasioned delay.
Jimmie helped to get his friend the "wobbly," and passed him
on to be lowered with a rope. By that time the deck had got
such a slant that it was hard to walk on it ; the bow was settling,
and the stern rearing up in the air. Never could you have
realised the size of an ocean-liner, until you saw it rear itself
up like a monstrous mountain, preparatory to plunging beneath
the waves! "Jump for it!" shouted voices. "They'll pick
you up from the other vessels. Jump and swim."
So Jimmie rushed to the rail. He saw a life-boat below,
trying to push away, and being beaten against the vessel by the
heavy waves. He heard a horrible scream, and saw a man slip
between the boat and the side of the liner. People on every
side of him were jumping — so many that he could not find a clear
spot iu the water. But at last he saw one, and climbed upon
the rail and^took the plunge.
He struck the icy water and sank, and a wave rolled over
him. He came up quickly, owing to his life-preserver, and
gasped for breath, and was choked by another rushing wave
and then pounded on the head by an oar in the hands of a strug-
gling sailor. He managed to get out of the way, and struck
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200 JIMMIE HIGGINS
out to get clear of the vessel. He knew how to do this, thanks
to many "swimmin'-holes" — including the one he had visited
with the Candidate. But he had never before swam in such
deadly cold as this; it was colder than he had dreamed when
he had talked about it with Comrade Meissner ! Its icy hand
seemed to smite him, to smite the life out of him ; he struggled
desperately, as one struggles against suffocation.
The waves beat him here and there; and then suddenly he
was seized as if by the falls of Niagara, drawn along and drawn
under — down, doWn. He thought it was the end, and when
again he bobbed up to the surface, his breath was all but gone.
The great bulk of the vessel was no longer in sight, and Jimmie
was struggling in a whirlpool, along with upset boats and oars
and deck-chairs and miscellaneous wreckage, and scores of
people clinging to such objects, or swimming frantically to reach
them.
Jjmmie was just about ready to roll over and let his face
go under, when suddenly there loomed above him on the top
of a wave a boat rowed swiftly by sailors. One in the boat
flung a rope to him, and he tried to catch it, but missed; the
boat plunged towards him, and an arm reached out, and caught
him by the collar. It was a strong and comforting arm, and
Jimmie abandoned himself to it, and remembered nothing more
for a long time.
VI
When Jimmie opened his eyes again he was in a most
extraordinary position. At first he could not make it out, he
was only aware of endless bruises and blows, as if some one were
shaking him about in a gigantic pepper-cruet. As nature pro-
tested desperately against such treatment, Jimmie fought his
way back to consciousness, and caught hold of something, in
his neighbourhood, which presently turned out to be a brass rail-
ing; he struggled to ward ofE the blows of his tormentors, which
turned out to be the aforesaid railing, plus a wall, plus two
other men, one on each side of him, the three of them being
lashed to the brass railing with ropes. The wall and railing
and Jimmie and the other men were behaving in an incredible
fashion — swinging down, as if they were plunging into a bottom-
less abyss, then swinging up, as if they were going to part alto-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS TAKES A SWIM 201
gether from this mundane sphere; the total enormous swing,
from bottom to top, being mathematically calculated to occupy
a period of five and one half seconds of time.
Jimmie discovered before long that there were a whole row
of men, lashed fast and subjected to this perplexing form of
torture. They made you think of a row of carcasses in a
butcher-shop — only, who could picture a butcher-shop whose
floor careened to an angle of forty-five degrees in one direction,
and then, in a space of precisely five and a half seconds, careened
to an angle of forty-five degrees in the opposite direction?
And they kept bringing more carcasses and hanging them in
this insane butcher-shop ! Two sailors in uniforms would come
staggering, carrying a man between them, clinging to the railing,
to Jimmie, to the other men, to anything else they could grab.
They would make a desperate rush while the swing was right,
and get to a new place on the railing, where they would tie the
new man with a bit of rope about his waist, and leave him
there to be mauled and pounded. One side of the room was
lined solid with carcasses, and then the other side, and still they
came. This was apparently a dining-saloon, there being a table
down the middle, and two rows of chairs ; they lashed people into
these chairs, they brought others and lashed them to the bottom
of the chairs — any old place at all! There were some who
thought they could hold on for themselves ; but after the sailors
were gone they discovered that it took more skill to hold on
than they realised, and they would come hurtling across the
floor, winding up with a crash on top of some one else.
It was not the first time in Jimmie's life that he had had to
scramble for himself in some uncomfortable situation; he got
his wits together quickly. He was shivering as if with ague,
and he managed to get out of his wet coat. There being a
couple of ladies strapped into chairs in front of him, he did
not like to go further; but presently came sailors with armfuls
of blankets, and made him perform the complicated feat of get-
ting out of his dripping icy uniform and getting the blanket
wrapped around his middle, so that the rope would not saw him
into halves. Then came a steward with a pot of hot coffee;
being marvellously expert at holding this at all angles of the
ship, he poured it into cups with little funnels for drinking, and
thus got some down Jimmie's throat.
The little machinist felt better after that, and was able to
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202 JIMMIE HIGGINS
devote attention to the man on his right, who had hit his nose
80 many times that it was bleeding in a stream, and had been
tilted at so many angles that the blood had run into his eyes and
made him blind. The man on the other side of him apparently
could make no effort at all to keep his face from being pounded,
or his feet from being thrown into the pit of Jimmie's stomach ;
after Jimmie made a number of protests, an of55cer came along,
and put his ear to the man's chest and pronounced him dead.
They brought another rope, and lashed him tighter, so that he
would behave himself.
For several hours Jimmie clung to that railing. The de-
stroyer would soon be in port, they kept telling him; meantime
they brought him hot soup to keep up his strength. Some peo-
ple fainted, but there was nothing that could be done for them.
The first boat-loads of the rescued had filled up the berths of
both officers and crew; the rest must hang on to the railings as
best they could. They should be, thankful it was decent weather,
said one of the sailors; the vessel didn't roll any faster in bad
weather, but it rolled much farther in the same time — a dis-
tinction which struck Jimmie as over-subtle.
The poor fellow's arms were numb with exhaustion, he had
lost hope that anything in the world ever could be still, when the
announcement was made that the harbour was in sight, and
everybody's troubles would soon be over. And sure enough,
the rolling gradually became less. The little vessel still quivered
from stem to stern with the movement of her enormous engines,
but Jimmie didn't mind that — he was used to machinery; he
got himself untied from the railing, and lay down on the floor,
right there where he was, and fell asleep. Nor did he open his
eyes when they came with a stretcher; and carried him onto a
pier and slid him into a motor-truck and whisked him ofE to a
hospital.
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CHAPTER XXI
JIMMIE HIGQINS ENTERS SOCIETY
■l^THEN Jimmie took an interest in life again he was lying
* * in a bed : a bed that actually was still, that did not rise
with a leaping motion to the ceiling, and then sink like a swift
elevator into the basement. Better yet was the fact that this
bed had clean sheets, and a lovely angel in spotless white hover-
ing about it. You who read of Jimmie Higgins' adventures
have perhaps been blessed with some of the good things of life,
and may need to have it explained to you that never before
had Jimmie known what it was to sleep between sheets — to
say nothing of clean sheets; never had he known what it was
to sleep in a night-gown ; never had he had hot broth fetched to
him by a snow-white angel with a bright smile and an aureole
of golden-brown hair! This marvellous creature waited on his
slightest nod, and when she was not busy running errands for
him, she sat by his bedside and chatted, asking him all sorts of
questions about himself and his life. She thought he was a
soldier, and he, shameless wretch, discovered what she thought,
and delayed to tell her that he was a common repairer of
motor-cycles !
This was a war-hospital, and there were terrible sights to
be seen here, terrible sounds to be heard; but Jimmie for a
long time missed them almost entirely — he was so comfortable !
He lay like a nice dozy cat ; he ate good things and drank good
things, and then he fell asleep, and then he opened his eyes in
the simshine of a golden brown aureole. It was only gradually
that he realised that somewhere in the ward a man was choking
and gasping all night, because the inside of his lungs had been
partly eaten out with poisonous acids.
Jimmie inquired and was told that more than a hundred
people on the transport had lost their lives, including several
14 203
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204 JIMMIE HIGOINS
women; the nurse brought a paper with a list of the casualties,
among which he read the name of Mike Angoni — ^his friend the
"wobbly" from the far West ! Also the name of Peter Toms —
the seaman from Cornwall, caught at the eighth attempt!
Jimmie read that the submarine which had sunk the transport
had been shattered by a depth-charge, and the sea all strewn
with the wreckage of it; and strange and terrible as it might
seem, Jimmie, the pacifist, the Socialist, experienced a thrill of '
satisfaction! Not once did he stop to reflect that on board
this underwater craft might have been some German comrade,
some poor, enslaved, unhappy internationalist like himself!
Jimmie wanted the sneaking, treacherous terrors of the sea ex-
terminated, regardless of everything !
The nurse with the halo of golden-brown hair got interested
in her American patient, and would sit and talk with him
every chance she got. She learned about Eleeza Betooser and
the babies who had been blown to pieces in the explosion. Also
she learned about Jimmie's being a Socialist, and asked him
questions about it. Wasn't he just a little hard on the leisure
classes? Might it not be that some of the capitalists would
be as glad as he to know about a better social system? The
young lady pronounced the word "capitalists" with the accent
on the "it," which puzzled Jimmie for a time; also she assured
him that "wage shedules" would never go back to what they
were before the war, and Jimmie had to ask what a "shedule" '
might be. He did not have to ask what she meant by a "tart,"
because there it was on his tray — a delicious little strawberry '
pie.
II
This meant that the destroyer had come to an English
port; the nurse was a Britisher. If Jimmie had had tact, he
would have remembered that Britishers have an outfit of earls
and dukes and lords and things, to which they are sentimentally
attached. But tact is not the leading virtue of Socialists; in
fact Jimmie made a boast of scorning it — if people asked his
opinion, he "gave it to 'em straight." So now he caused this
white angel to understand that he regarded the effete aristocra-
cies of the old world with abysmal contempt; he meant to put
them out of business right off the bat. In vain the white angel
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JIMMIE HIQGINS ENTERS SOCIETY 205
pleaded that some of them might be useful people, or at any
rate well-meaning ; Jimmie pronounced them a bunch of para-
sites and grafters; the thing to do was to make a clean sweep
of them.
"You won't cut off their heads ?" pleaded the nurse. "Sure-
ly they ought to have a chance to reform V
"Oh, sure !" answered Jimmie. "All I mean is, everybody's
got to go to work — the dooks an' aristercrats like the rest."
The nurse went off, carrying Jimmie's chamber to be
emptied; and while she was gone, the man in the next bed, a
gun-pointer from an American destroyer with his head bandaged
up so that he looked like a Hindoo swami, turned his tired eyes
upon Jimmie and drawled : "Say, you guy, you better can that
line o' talk!"
"Whaddyer mean ?" demanded Jimmie, scenting controversy
with some militarist.
"I mean that there young lady belongs to the nobility her-
self."
"Go on !" said Jimmie.
"Straight !" said the other. "Her father's the earl of Skye-
terrier, or some such damn place."
"Aw, cut it out !" growled the little machinist — for you never
knew in dealing with these soldier boys whether you were being
"kidded" or not.
"Did you ask her name?"
"She told me it was Miss Clendenning."
"Well, you ask her if she ain't the Honourable Beatrice Clen-
denning, and see what she says."
But Jimmie could not get up the nerve to ask. When the
yoimg lady came back, carrying his chamber washed clean, her
pet patient was lying still, but so red in the face that she sus-
pected that he had been trying to get out of bed without per-
mission.
Ill
Nor was that the end of wonders. Next day there ran a
murmur of excitement through the ward, and everything was
cleaned up fresh, though there was really nothing that needed
cleaning. Flowers were brought in, and each nurse had a flower
pinned on her waist. When Jimmie asked what was "up," the
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206 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Honourable Beatrice looked at him with a quizzical smile.
"We're going to have some distinguished visitors," she said.
"But you won't be interested — a class-conscious proletarian like
you."
And she would not tell him; but when she went out, the
fellow in the next bed told. "It's the king and queen that's
comin'," said the gun-pointer.
"Aw, ferget it!" said Jimmie^quite sure he was being
"kidded" this time.
"Comin' to see the submarine victims," said the gun-pointer.
"You cut out your Socialist rough stuff for to-day."
Jimmie asked the nurse when she came back; and sure
enough, it was true — the king and queen were to visit the hos-
pital, and pay their respects to the victiins of the U-boat. But
that wouldn't interest Jimmie Higgins. Would he not rather
be carried away and put in a private room somewhere, so that
his revolutionary eyes would not be offended? Or would he
stay, and make a soap-boxer of His Majesty ?
"Sure, he won't have no time to talk to a feller like me!"
said Jimmie.
"Don't you be too sure," replied the other. "He's got noth-
ing to do but talk, you know !"
Jimmie didn't venture any farther, because he knew that the
Honourable Beatrice was laughing at him, and he had never been
laughed at by a woman before, and didn't know quite how to
take it. He could not have been expected to understand that
the Honourable Beatrice was a suffragette, and laughed at all
men on general principles. Jimmie lay quietly in his bed and
concealed the unworthy excitement in his soul. Wasn't that
the devil now? Him, a little runt of a workingman from no-
where in particular, that had been brought up on a charity-
farm, and spent a good part of his life on the bum — him to be
meeting the king of England ! Jimmie had a way of disposing
of kings that was complete and final; he called them "kinks,"
and when he had called them that he had settled them, wiped
them clean out. "None o' them kinks fer me!" he had said
to the Honourable -Beatrice.
But now a "kink" was coming to the hospital ! And what was
Jimmie going to do ? How the devil did you talk to *em ? Did
you have to say, "Your Majesty" ? Jimmie gripped his hands
under the bed-covers, "I'll be damned if I do !" He summoned
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS SOCIETY 207
his revolutionary fervour, he called up the spirits of his "wobbly"
friendsj "Wild BUI" and "Strawberry" Curran and "Flathead
Joe" and "Chuck" Peterson. What would they do under these
circumstances? What would the Candidate do? Somehow,
Jimmie's revolutionary education had been neglected — nothing
had ever been said in any Socialist local as to how a comrade
should behave when a "kink" came to visit him !
Jimmy was naturally a kindly human being; he was ready
to respond to the kindness of other human beings. But was
it in accord with revolutionary ethics to be polite to a "kink"?
Was it not his duty to do something to show his contempt for
"kinks"? Maybe his Boyal Nibs never had anybody to "stand
up to him" in all his life before. Well, let him have it to-day !
IV
A nurse rushed into the ward in great excitement,' and
whispered, "They're coming!" And after that the nurses all
stood round, twisting their hands together nervously, and the
patients lay with their eyes glued on the door where the appari-
tion was to appear.
At last there came in sight a man dressed in uniform, who
Jimmie would never have dreamed could be a king — except that
he had seen his picture in the illustrated papers. He was a
medium-sized, rather stoop-shouldered little gentleman, decidedly
commonplace-looking, with a closely trimmed brown beard turn-
ing grey, and rosy cheeks such as all Englishmen have. He was
escorted by the head of the hospital-staff ; and behind him came
a lady, a severe-looking lady dressed in black, with a couple more
doctors escorting her, and behind them several oflScers in uni-
form.
The king and queen stopped at the head of the room, and
looked down the rows of beds. Each of them wore a friendly
smile, and nodded, and said, "How do you do ?" And of course
everybody smiled back, and the nurses curtsied and said, "How
do you do, Your Majesties?" And then His Majesty said, "I
hope everybody is doing well ?" And the doctor called the head
nurse in charge of the ward, who came up smiling and bowing,
and answered that everybody was doing beautifully, thank you ;
at which both His Majesty and Her Majesty declared that they
were so pleased. The queen looked about, and seeing a man with
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208 JIMMIB HIGGINS
many bandages, went to him and sat by his bedside and began to
ask him questions ; the king moved down the centre of the room,
until suddenly hie eye happened on the Honourable Beatrice.
She had not moved; she stood at her place like the other
nurses. But Jimmie, watching, saw a smile come upon the
king's face, and he moved towards her, saying, "Oh! How do
you do?" The young lady went to meet him, quite as if she
were used to meeting kings every day.
"How are your patients doing?" inquired His Majesty.
, "Beautifully," said she; and His Majesty said that he was
pleased — just as if he had not said the same words only a
minute before. He looked at the patients with benevolent but
tired-looking eyes ; and the Honourable Beatrice, by those subtle
methods known to women, brought it about that he looked
especially at her favourite. She knew that he would wish to talk
to some of the patients, and by ever so slight a movement she
brought it about that it was towards Jimmie Higgins he ad-
vanced.
"What is your name?" he asked, and then, "Well, Higgins,
how are you feeling?"
"Sure, I'm all right," said Jimmie sturdily; "I wanner get
up, only she won't let me."
"Well," said His Majesty, "the time was when the king was
the tyrant, but now it's the ;nurse." He smiled at the Honour-
able lady. "Are you an American soldier?"
"Naw," replied Jimmie, "I'm only a machinist."
"This is a war of machines," replied His Majesty, gra-
ciously.
"I'm a Socialist !" exclaimed Jimmie, right off the bat.
"Indeed!" said His Majesty.
"You bet !" was the reply.
"But you're not one of those Socialists who oppose their
country, I see."
"I done it for a long time," said Jimmie. "I didn't see
we had no business in this here war. But I Jaeen changin' — a
bit."
"I'm glad to hear that," remarked His Majesty. "Doubtless
your recent experience has helped you to change."
"Sure," replied Jimmie. "But I'm still a Socialist, don't you
make no mistake about that, Mr. King."
"I won't," said His Majesty; and he looked at the Honour-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS SOCIETY 209
able Beatrice, and between them there flashed one of those
subtle messages which highly sophisticated people know how to
give and to catch— entirely over the heads of Socialist machin-
ists from Leesville, U. S. A. To the Honourable Beatrice the
message conveyed, "How perfectly delicious !" To His Majesty
it conveyed, "I knew you'd enjoy it!"
Jimmie's mind was of course occupied entirely with the
idea of propaganda. He must make the most of this strange
opportunity! "Things is goin' to be changed after this here
war !" said he. "Per the workin' people, I mean."
"They'U be changed for all of us," said His Majesty. "The
dullest of us know that."
"The workin' people got to get what they earn!" persisted
Jimmie. "Why, Mr. King — back home where I come from a
feller could work twelve hours a day all his life, an' not have
enough saved up to bury himself with. An' they say it was
^yorse here in England."
"We have had terrible poverty," admitted His Majesty.
"We shall have to find some way of getting rid of it."
"There ain't no way but Socialism !" cried Jimmie. "Look
into it, an' you'll see ! We gotter get rjd o' the profit-system.
The feller that does the work has gotter get what he produces."
"Well," said His Majesty, "you'll agree with me this far at
least — we must beat the Germans first." And then he turped
to the Honourable Beatrice. "We shall learn much from our
American visitors," he said, and flashed her another of those
subtle messages, which indicated that perhaps it was not a good
thing for patients in hospitals to become excited over Socialist
propaganda ! So the Honourable Beatrice' turned to the man
in the other bed, and. His Majesty turned also ; he ascertained
that the man's name was Deakin, and tHat he came from Cape
Cod. His Majesty remarked how badly England needed good
Yankee gun-pointers, and how grateful he was to those who came
to help the British navy. Jimmie listened, just a tiny bit jealous
— ^not for himself, of course, but because he knew that Socialism
was so much more important than gun-pointing !
At the foot of the bed there stood a military oflScer. He had
been there for some time, but Jimmie did not notice him till the
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210 JIMMIB HIGGINS
king arose and moved away. The officer was just the sort of
hand-made aristocrat that Jimmie imagined all officers to be;
smooth-shaven, except for a little toy moustache, with serene, im-
passive features, a dapper and immaculate uniform, and a queer
little fancy stick in his hand, to show that he never did anything
resembling work. He was eyeing the machinist, with what the
machinist suspected to be a superior air. "Well, my good man,"
said he, "you had a talk with the king !"
That seemed obvious enough. "Sure !" said Jimmie.
"Generally," continued the officer, "wEen one talks with the
king, one addresses him as 'Your Majesty'-^not as 'Mr. King*."
Jimmie was tired now, and not looking for controversy; so
he did not bridle as he might otherwise have done. "Nobody
told me," said he.
"Also," continued the other, "one is not supposed to volunteer
opinions. One waits for the king to ask a question, and then one
answers."
Jimmie's eyes were closed, and he only half opened them as
he answered. "They been tellin' me this here is a war for
Democracy!" said he.
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CHAPTER XXII
JIMMIE HIGQINS WORKS FOE HIS UNCI.EI
'y HEY gave Jimmie Higgins a couple of days to lie about on
* the grounds of the hospital, and make the acquaintance and
hear the experiences of men who had lost arms and legs in bat-
tle, or had been burned by flame-throwers, or ruined for life by
poison-gases. Strange as it might seem, Jimmie found among
these men not a few with whom he could talk, whose point of
view was close to his own. These Britishers had been through
the mill ; they knew. None of the glory stuff for them ! Leave
that for the newspaper scribblers, the bloody rascals who stayed
at home and beat on tomtoms, driving other men to march in
and die. You went and got yourself battered up, ruined for
life — and then what would they do for you? It was a hard
world to a man who was crippled and helpless. Yes, said
Jimmie; the same hard world that it was to a Secialist, a
dreamer of justice.
But there was the old dilemma, from which he had never
been able to find escape, whether in Leesville, U. S. A., or on
the high seas, or here in old England. What were you going to
do about the Huns? To hold out your hand to them was like
putting it into a tiger's cage. No, by God, you had to fight
them, you had to lick them, cost what it might! And the
speaker would go on and tell of things he had seen : a Prussian
officer who had shot a British surgeon in the back, after this
surgeon had bound up his wounds; a commandant of a prison-
camp who had withdrawn all medical aid in a typhus-epidemic,
and allowed his charges to perish like rats.
So, hell though it was, you had to go through with it; if you
were a man, you had to set your teeth and grip your hands and
take your share of the horror, whatever it might be. And
Jimmie, being something of a little man in his way, would set
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212 JIMMIE HIGGINS
his teeth and grip his hands and take, in imagination, the share
of the particular human wreck who happened to be talking to
him. So Jimmie Higgins was battered back and forth, like a
tennis-ball between the two forces of Militarism and Revolution.
Just now was another crisis — the Huns had begun a furious
drive in Flanders, the third battle of Ypres, and the British
were falling back, not in rout, but in retreat which might be-
come rout at any hour. The bulletins came in several times
a day, and people on the streets would stop and read them, their
faces full of fear. When the wind was right you could hear
the guns across the channel; Jimmie would lie at night and
listen to the dull, incessaiit thunder — a terrific, man-made storm,
in which showers of steel were raining down upon the heads of
soldiers hiding in shell-holes and hastily dug trenches. The
war seemed very near indeed when the wind was right !
II
Still, a fellow has to live. Jimmie was in a foreign land
for the first time in his life, and when they turned him loose,
he and a couple of other American chaps went wandering about
the streets, staring at the sights of this town, which had been a
small harbour before the war, but now was a vast centre of the
world's commerce, one of the routes by which large sections of
Britain were moved across the channel eVery day.
You saw on the streets no men out of uniform, except a few
old ones ; you saw nobody at all idle, except the young children.
The women were driving the trucks, and operating the street-
cars, which were called "trams," and the elevators, which were
called "lifts." Everybody's face was sober and drawn, but they
lightened up when they saw the Americans, who had come so
far to help them in their trouble. In the cake-shops, and the
queer little "pubs" where rosy-cheeked girls sold very thin beer,
they could not be polite enough to the visitors from over-seas;
even the haughtiest-looking "bobby" would stop to tell you the
way about the streets. "First to the roight, third to the left," he
would say, very fast ; and when you looked bewildered, he would
say it again, as fast as ever.
But they needed motor-cycles so badly in the new American
armies that they didn't give Jimmie much time to be a hero;
he got his orders, and a new outfit, and bade farewell to the
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JIMMIE HIQGINS WORKS FOR HIS UNCLE 213
lonourable Beatrice, promising to write to her now and then,
md not to be too hard on the aristocracy. He crossed the chan-
lel, alive with boats like the Hudson River with its ferries,
md came to another and still bigger port, which the Americans
lad taken and made over new for the war. Long vistas of docks
lad been built since the fighting began ; Jimmie saw huge cranes
hat dipped down into the hold of a ship, and pulled out whole
oeomotives, or maybe half a dozen automobile trucks in one
woop. Behind these docks was a tangle of railroad-yards and
racks, and miles upon miles of sheds, piled to the top with
tores of every sort you could imagine. A. whole encampment-
ity covered the surrounding hills, crowned by an old, creaking,
aoss-grown windmill — the Middle Ages looking in dismay upon
hese modern times.
Nobody took the trouble to invite Jimmie to inspect these
Qarvels, but he got glimpses here and there, and men with
?hom he chatted told him more. One man had been directing
he unloading of canned tomatoes; for six months he had seen
Lothing but crates upon crates and car-loads upon car-loads of
anned tomatoes, coming into one end of a shed and going out
.t the other. Somewhere in the higher regions dwelt a mar-
eUous tomato-brain, which knew exactly how many cans a
livision of dough-boys in a training-camp would consume each
[ay, how many would be needed by patients in hospitals, by
umbermen in French forests, by revellers in Y. M. C. A. huts.
Cvery how and then a ship brought another supply, and the
aan who told Jimmie about it bossed a gang of negroes who
liled the crates on trucks.
And then Jimmie met a Frenchman, who had been a waiter
a a Chicago hotel, and now was bossing a gang of wire-haired
Korean labourers. Jimmie had thought he knew all the races
f the earth in the shops and mills and mines of America; but
ere he heard of new kinds of men — Annamese and Siamese,
'aythans and Sikhs, Madagascans and Abyssinians and Alge-
ians. All the British empire was here, and all the French
olonies. There were Portuguese and Brazilians and West In-
ians, bushmen from Australia. and Zulus from South Africa;
nd these not having proven enough, America was now pouring
ut the partly melted contents of her pot — Hawaiians and Porto
licans, Filipinos and "spiggoties," Esquimaux from Alaska,
Jhinamen from San Francisco, Sioux from Dakota, and plain
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214 JIMMIE HIGGINS
black plantation niggers from Louisiana and Alabama ! Jimmie
saw a gang of these latter mending a track which had been blown
out of place by a bomb from an aeroplane ; their black skins shin-
ing with sweat, their white teeth shining with good-nature as
they swung their heavy crow-bars, a long row of them moving
like a machine, chanting to keep in unison. "Altogether-
heave!" the officer would call, and the line would swing intr
motion
"Get a mule
An' a jack!
No slow.
No slack!
Put the hump
In yo' back "
in
For nearly four years Jimmie had been reading about
Prance, and now he was here, and could see the sights with his
own eyes. People with wooden shoes, for example! It was
worth coming across the seas to see women and kids going
clatter, clatter along the cobbled streets. And the funny little
railroad-coaches, with rows of doors like rabbit-pens. It was
a satisfaction to notice that the train had a, real man-sized engine,
with U. S. A. painted thereon. Jimmie owned a share in that
engine, and experienced socialistic thrills as he rode behind it.
He had got separated from his "unit," thanks to the sub-
marine and the sojourn in the hospital. They had given him
a pass, with orders to proceed to a certain town, travelling on a
certain train. Now Jimmie sat looking out of the window, as
happy as a boy out of school. A beautiful country, the fresh
green glory of spring everywhere upon it; broad, straight mili-
tary highways lined with poplars, and stone houses with queer
steep roofs, and old men and women and children toiling in the
fields.
Jimmie chattered with the men in the compartment, sol-
diers and workers, each a cog in the big machine, each bound
upon some important errand. Each had news to tell — ^tales
of the fighting, or of the progress of preparation. For more than
a year now America had been getting ready, and here, in the
most desperate crisis of the war, what was she going to do?
Everybody was on tip-toe with excitement, with impatience to
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JIMMIE HIGGINS WORKS FOR HIS UNCLE 215
get into the scrap, to make good in the work upon which his
soul was set. Every man knew that the "dough-boys" would
show themselves the masters of "Fritz" ; they knew it as religious
people know there is a God in Heaven — only, unlike most re-
ligious people, they were anxious to get to this heaven and meet
this God at the earliest possible moment. Next to Jimmie sat a
Wisconsin farmer-boy, German in features, in name, even in
accent; yet he was ready to fight the soldiers of the Kaiser —
and quite sure he could lick them! Had he not lived since
childhood in a free country, and been to an American public-
school ?
Everybody had funny stories to tell about the adventures
of soldiers in a foreign land. The French were all right, of
course, especially the girls; but the shop-keepers were frugal,
and you had better count your change, and bite the coins they
offered you. As for their language — holy smoke! Why did a
civilised people want to talk a lingo that made you grunt like
a pig — or like a penful of pigs of all sizes? Across the way sat
a Chicago street-car conductor with a little lesson-book, arfd now
and then he would read something out loud. An, in, on, un,
that many different sizes of pigs ! When you wanted bread, you
asked for a pain, and when you wanted a dish of eggs, you asked
for a cat-roof omelette. How was this for a tongue-twister —
say five hundred and fifty-five francs in French !
Fortunately, you didn't have to say that many — not on the
pay of a dough-boy, put in a plumber from up-state in New
York. For his part, he did not bother to grunt — ^he would make
drinking motions or eating motions, and they would bring him
things till they found what he wanted. One time he had met a
girl that he thought was all right, .and he wanted to blow her to
a feed, so he drew a picture of a chicken, thinking he would
get it roasted. She had chattered away to the waiter, and he
had come back with two soft-boiled eggs. That was the French
notion of taking a girl out to dinner !
IV
They loaded Jimmie into a motor-lorry and whirled him
away. You knew you were going to war then, by heck; there
were two almost solid processions of wagons and trucks, loaded
with French soldiers and materials going, and damaged French
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216 JIMMIE HIGGINS
soldiers returning. It was like Broadway at the most crowded
hour ; only here everything went by in a whirl of dust — ^you got
quick glimpses of drivers with tense faces and blood-shot eyes.
Now and then there would be a blockade, and men would swear
and fume in mixed languages ; staff-cars in an extra hurry would
go off the road and bump along across country, while gangs of
negro labourers, French colonials, seized the opportunity to fill
up the ruts worn in the highway.
They put Jimmie off at a village where his motor-unit was
located, in a long shed made of corrugated iron, the sort of shed
which the army threw up over night. Here were a score of
men working at repairs, and Jimmie stopped for no formalities,
but took off his coat and pitched in. There was plenty of
work, he could see; the machines came, sometimes whole truck-
loads of them, damaged in every way he had ever seen before,
and in new ways not dreamed of in Kumme's bicycle-shop— tires
torn to shreds by fragments of shrapnel, frames twisted out of
shape by explosions, and nasty splotches of blood completing, the
story.
It was one of the many places where American units had
been taken to plug the damaged French lines. There was a
reserve battalion nearby, and outside this village a group of men
at work, putting up tents for a hospital. Some thirty miles
ahead was the front, and you heard the guns off and on, a low
.sullen roar, punctuated with hammer-strokes of big fellows.
Millions of dollars every hour were being blown to nothingness
in that fearful inferno; a gigantic meat-mill that was grinding
up the bodies of men, and had never ceased day or night for
nearly four years. You could be a violent pacifist in sound of
those guns, or you could be a violent militarist, but you could not
be indifferent to the war, you could not be of two minds about it.
And yet — Jimmie Higgins was of two minds ! He wanted
to beat back the Huns, who had made all this fearful mess ; but
also he wanted to beat the profiteers who were making messes
at home. It happened that Jimmie had reached the army. at a
trying moment, when there were no American big guns, and
when promises of machine-guns and aeroplanes had failed.
There was wild excitement in the home papers, and not a little
grumbling in the army. It was graft and politics, men said;
and Jimmie caught eagerly at this idea. He pointed out how
the profiteers at home were intrenching themselves, making
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JIMMIE HIGGINS WORKS FOR HIS UNCLE 217
ready to exploit the soldiers returning without jobs. That was
a lin^e of talk the men were ready for, and the little machinist
rejoiced to see the grim look that come upon their faces. They
would attend to it, never fear ; and Jimmie would go on to tell
them exactly how to attend to it !
But that was only now and then, when the wind was the
other way, and you did not hear the guns. For the most part
Jimmie's thoughts were drawn irresistibly to the front; about
him were thousands of other men, all their thoughts at the
front, their hands clenched, their teeth set, their beings centred
upon the job of holding the Beast at bay. Jimmie saw the grey
ambulances come in, and the wounded lifted out on stretchers,
their heads bandaged, their bodies covered with sheets, their
faces a ghastly waxen colour. He saw the poilus, fresh from the
trenches, after God alone knew what siege of terror. They came
staggering, bent double under a burden of equipment. The first
time Jimmie saw them was a day of ceaseless rain, when the dust
ground up by the big lorries was turned into ankle-deep mud;
the Frenchmen were plastered with it from head to foot ; you saw
under their steel helmets only a mud-spattered beard, and the
end of a nose, and a pair of deep-sunken eyes. They stopped to
rest not far from the place where Jimmie worked; they sank
down in the wet, they fell asleep in pools of water, where not
even beasts could have slept. You did not have to know any
French to understand what these men had been through. Good
God ! Was that what was going on up there ?
Jimmie thanked his stars he was no nearer. But that
coward's comfort did not last him long, for Jimmie was not a
coward, he was not used to letting other men struggle and
suffer for him. His conscience began to gnaw at him. If that
was what it cost to beat down the Beast, to make the world safe
for democracy, why should he be escaping? Why should he be
warm and dry and well fed, while workingmen of France lay out
in the trenches in the rain ?
Jimmie went back and worked overtime without extra pay — ■
something that old man Granitch had never got out of him,
you bet, nor old man Kumme either. For three whole days
he stayed a militarist, forgetting his life-long training in re-
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218 JIMMIE HIGGINS
bellion. But then he got into an argument with a red-headed
Orangeman in his unit, who expressed the opinion that every
Socialist was a traitor at heart, and that after the war the army
should be used to make an end of them all. Jimmie in his rage
went farther than he really meant, and again got a "calling
down" from his superior officer; so for several days his pro-
letarian feelings blazed, he wanted the revolution right away,
Huns or no Huns.
VI
But most of the time now the spirit of the herd mastered
Jimmie; he wanted what all the men about him wanted-^to
hold back the Beast from these fair French fields and quaint
old villages, and these American hospitals and rest-camps and
Y. M. Q, A. huts — to say nothing of motor-cycle repair-sheds
with Jimmie Higgins in them! And the trouble was that the
Beast was not being held back; he was coming nearer and
nearer — one bull rush after another ! Jimmie's village was near
the valley of the Marne, and that was the road to Paris; the
Beast wanted to get to Paris, he really expected to get to Paris !
The sound of guns grew louder and louder, and rumour
flew wild-eyed and wild-tongued about the country. The traffic
in the roads grew denser, but moving more slowly now, for the
Germans were shelling the road ahead, and blockades were fre-
quent; one huge missile had fallen into a French artillery-train
only a couple of miles away. "They'll be moving us back, if
this keeps up," said Jimmie's sergeant; and Jimmie wondered:
suppose they didn't move them ! Suppose they forgot aU about
it! Was there any person whose particular dul^ it was to
remember to see that motor-cycle units got moved in the precise
nick of time ? And what if the Germans were to break through
and sweep over all calculations? This was a little more than
Jimmie Higgins had bargained for when he entered the re-
cruiting-office in Leesville, U. S. A. !
They gave out gas-masks to every one in Jimmie's unit,
and put an alarm-bell in the shed, and made everybody practise
putting on the masks in a hurry. Jimmie was so scared that
he thought seriously of running away ; but — such is the perversity
of human nature — what he did was to run in the opposite direc-
tion! His officer in command came into the shed and de-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS WORKS FOR HIS UNCLE 219
snanded, "Can any of you men ride?" And imagine any fel-
low who worked at repairing motor-eycles admitting that he
couldn't ride 1 "I can I" said Jimmie. "I can !" said every
other workman in the place.
"What is it?" asked Jimmie — always of the forward and
pushing sort.
"The French ask for half a dozen men in a rush. They've
had several motor-cycle imits wiped out or captured."
"Gee!" said Jimmie. "I'll go!"
"And me!" said another. "And me!" "And me!"
"All right," said the officer, and told them off: "You and
you and you. And you, CuUen, take command. Report to
French headquarters at Chatty Terry. You know where it is!"
"Sure Mike !" said CuUen. "I been there." Jimmie hadn't
been to "Chatty Terry," but he knew it was somewheres across
the Hame. The officer gave him a map, showing the villages
through which he would go. Jimmie and his companions
named these villages, using sensible language, without conces-
sion to the fool notions of the natives. Wipers, Reems, Ver-
doon. Devil Wood, Arm-in-tears, Saint Meal — aU these Jimmie
had heard about ; also a place where the Americans had won their
first glorious victory a week ago, and which they called, some-
times Cantinny, sometimes Tincanny. And now Jimmie was
going to "Chatty Terry," in charge of a red-headed Orange-
man who a few days ago had expressed the opinion that all
Socialists were traitors and should be shot!
The officer gave them passes, one for each man, in case they
got separated, and they started towards the place where the new
machines were lined up. On the way Jimmie had a moment of
utter panic. What was this he was getting himself in for,
idiot that he was ? Going up there where the shells were falling,
wiping out motor-cycle units! And shells that were full of
poison gases, most of them! Of all the fool things he had
done in his life, this was the crown and climax! His knees
began to shake, he turned sick inside. But then he glanced
about, and caught Pat Cullen's menacing blue eye; Jimmie re-
turned the glare, and the spirit of battle flamed up in him, he
laid hold of the handles of a motor-cycle and strode towards the
door. Was any Irish miek going to catch him in a funk, and
"bawl him onV' before this crowd, and put the Socialist move-
ment to shame? Not much!
13
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CHAPTER XXIII
JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN
' HE six motor-cyclists leaped onto their machines and went
chugging down the road. Of course they raced one another ;
all motor-cyclists always race — and here was the best of all
possible excuses, the French army in dire need of them, several
of its precious cycle-units wiped out or captured ! Theyv tore
along, dodging in and out between trucks and automobiles,
ambulances and artillery caissons, horse-wagons ajnd mule-
wagons, achieving again and again those hair's-breadth escapes
which are the joy in life of every normal motor-cyclist. Now
and then, when things were too slow, they would try a crawl
in the ditches, or push their machines over the ploughed fields.
So it happened that Jimmie found himself competing with his
red-headed Irish enemy; there was a narrow opening between
two stalled vehicles, and Jimmie made it by the width of his
hand, and vaulted onto his machine and darted away, free and
exulting — ^his own boss ! He shoved in the juice and made time,
you bet; no "mick" was going to catch up and shout orders at
him!
There were long drains of refugees streaming back from the
battle-fields; pitiful peasant-people with horse-carts and dog-
carts and even wheel-barrows, toothless old men and women
trudging alongside, children and babies stuck in amidst bed-
ding and furniture and sauce-pans and bird-cages. This was
war, as the common people saw it; but Jimmie could not stop
now to think about it — Jimmie was on his way to the front.
There were big observation balloons up over his head, looking
like huge grey elephants with broad ears ; there were aeroplanes
whirring about, performing incredible acrobatic feats, and spray-
ing each other with showers of steel ; but Jimmie had no time
for a single glance at these marvels — Jimmie was on his way
to the front!
/Mci
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JIMMIB HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN 221
He swept around a curve, and there directly in front of
him was a hole in the middle of the road, as big as if a steam-
shovel had been working for a week. Jimmie clapped on the,
brakes, and swerved side-ways, missing a tree and plunging into
a cabbage-patch. He got off and said, Gee! once or twice;
and suddenly it was as if he were whacked on the side of the
ear with a twelve-inch board — the whole world about him turned
into a vast roar of sound, and a mountain of grey smoke leaped
into being in front of him. Jimmie stared, and saw out of a
little clump of bushes a long black object thrust itself out, like the
snout of a gigantic tapir from some prehistoric age. It was a
ten-inch gun, coming back from its recoil; and Jimmie, smell-
ing its fumes, struggled back to the road with his machine,
before the monster should speak again and stifle him entirely.
There was a frame house in the distance, and in front of it
a barnyard, and sheds with thatched roofs. There came a
scream, exactly like the siren of Hook and Ladder Company
Number One that used to go tearing about the streets in Lees-
ville, TJ. S. A. ; a light flashed in one of the sheds, and every-
thing disappeared in a burst of smoke, which spread itself in
the air like a huge duster made from turkey-feathers. There
came another shriek, a little nearer, and the ground rose in a
huge black mushroom, which boiled and writhed like the clouds
of an advancing thunderstorm. Boom ! Boom ! Two vast, all-
pervading roars came to Jimmie's ears; and his knees began to
quake. By heck ! He was under fire ! He looked ahead ; there
must be Germans just up there ! Was a fellow supposed to ride
on without knowing?
There was a big battle on, that much was certain; but the
uproar was so distributed that one could hardly tell whether it
was in front or behind. However, the transport was steadily
advancing — ^horse-wagons, mule-wagons, motor-wagons, all plod-
ding patiently, paying no heed to the shellbursts. And then
Jimmie took a look behind, and saw that infernal red-headed
Orangeman! He imagined a raucous voice, shouting: "G'mon
here ! Whatcher waiten' fer ?" Jimmie bounced onto his ma-
chine and turned her loose!
He came to a place where something had hit a load of am-
munition, and there were pieces of a wagon and a driver
scattered about; it was a horrible mess, but Jimmie passed it
without much emotion — his whole soul was centred on beating
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222 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Pat Cullen into "Chatty Terry" ! He came to the outskirts of a
village, and there was a peasant's cottage with the roof blown
off, and a smell fresh out of the infernal regions, and a terrified
old woman standing by the road-side with two terrified chil-
dren clinging to her skirts. Jimmie stopped his machine and
shouted : "Chatty Terry ?" When the old woman did not answer
quickly, he shouted again: "Chatty Terry? Chatty Terry?
Don't you understand French ? Chatty Terry ?" The old wom-
an apparently did not understand French.
He rode up the street of the village, and came to a military
policeman directing traific at a crossing. This fellow under-
stood English, and said : "Chatty Terry ? Eet ees taken !" And
when Jimmie stood dismayed, wondering what he was to do
now, the policeman told him that headquarters had been shifted
to this village — it was in the chateau; he did not say "chatty,"
60 Jimmie did not understand his kind of English. But Jimmie
rode as directed, and came to a place with iron gates in front,
and a big garden, and a sentry in front, and a bustle of coming
and going, so he knew that he had reached his, destination, and
had beaten his Irish enemy !
II
Jinamie's pass was in duplicate French and English, so the
sentry could read it, and signed him to pass in. At the door
of the chateau he showed the paper again, and a French officer
in the hall-way espied him, and exclaimed, "A cyclist? Mon
dieu !" He half ran Jimmie into another room, where another
officer sat at a big table with a chart spread out on it, and
innumerable filing cabinets on the walls, "tin courier Ameri-
cain !" he exclaimed.
"Only one ?" asked the officer, in English.
"Five more's comin'," said Jimmie quickly. He hated Pat
Cullen like the devil, but he wouldn't have any French officer
think that Pat would lie down on his job. "The road's cut
up, an' there's lots o' traffic. I come as fast "
"See!" interrupted the officer — not quite as polite as French-,
men are supposed to be. "This packet contains maps, which
we make from aeroplane-photographs — ^you comprehend? It la
for the artillerist "
The officer paused for a moment; there came a deafening
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JIMMIE HI6GINS MEETS THE HUN 223
crash outside, and the window of the room collapsed, and
something grazed Jimmie's face.
"Viola!" remarked the ofiBcer. "The enemy draws nearer.
Our wires are cut; we send couriers, but they perhaps do not
arrive ; it needs that we send many — ^what you say ? — duplicates.
You comprehend ?"
"Sure!" said Jimmie.
"It is most urgent; the battle depends upon it — the war, it
may be. You comprehend?"
"Sure!" said Jimmie again.
"You are brave, mon gargon?"
Jimmie did not reply so promptly to that; but the ofBcer
was too tactful to wait. Instead he asked, "You know French ?"
And when Jimmie shook his head: "It needs that you learn.
Say this: Botteree Normb Cott. Try it, if it pleases you:
Botteree Normb Cott."
Jimmie, stammering like a schoolboy, tried: the officer
made him repeat the sounds, assuring him gravely that he need
have no doubts whatever ; if he would make those precise sounds,
any Frenchmen would know what he was looking for. He was
to take the main road east from the village and ride till he
came to a fork ; then he was to bear to the right, and when he
came to the edge of a dense wood, he was to take the path to
the left, and then say to everybody he met: "Botteree Normb
Cott!"
"Is it that you have a weapon?" inquired the officer; and
when Jimmie answered no, he pressed a button, and spoke
quick words to an orderly, who came running with an automatic
revolver and a belt, which Jimmie proceeded to strap upon him,
with thrills, half of delighted pride and half of anguished ter-
ror. "You will say to the men of the botteree that the Ameri-
cans come soon to the rescue. You will find them, my brave
American?" The officer spoke as if to a son whom he dearly
loved; and Jimmie, who had never received an order in that
tone of voice, reciprocated the affection, and clenched his hands
suddenly and answered, "I'll do my best, sir." He turned to
leave the room, when whom should he see coming in — ^Mike
CuUen ! Jimmie gave him a wink and a grin, and hustled out-
side and leaped upon his machine.
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224 JIMMIE HIGKJINS
III
And now here was the little machinist from Leesville, U. S.
A., flying down the battered street of this French viHage with
something like a mid-western cyclone going on in his head.
They say that a drowning man remembers everything that ever
happened in his life; perhaps that was not true of Jimmie, but
certainly he remembered every pacifist argument he had ever
heard in his life. For the love of Mike, what was this he had let
himself in for? Bound for the spot where the whole German
army was trying to break through — ^upon an errand the most
dangerous of any in the war ! How in the naine of Karl Marx
and the whole revolutionary hierarchy had he managed to get
himself into such a pickle? He, Jimmie Higgins, Bolshevik
and wobbly!
And he was going through with it ! He was going to throw
his life away — just because he had started — because he had
pledged himself-^because he was carrying maps which might
enable a "botteree" to win the war! Did he really care that
much about this infernal capitalist war? So cried out the
proletarian demons in the soul of Jimmie Higgins; and mean-
time the engine hammered and chugged, and a miraculous power
in the depths of his subconsciousness moved the handle-bars so
that he dodged shell-holes and grazed automobiles.
The air was full of the scream of shells and tiie clatter o^
their bursting, an infernal din out of which he could hardly
pick individual sounds. The road ahead was less crowded; the
vehicles had left it, spreading out to one side or the other. How
much farther ahead was that fork ? And suppose the Germans
had got there, and had captured "Botteree Normb Gott" — ^was
he going to present them with a brand new motor-cycle in addi-
tion? There were other 'T)otterees" which he passed; why
couldn't he give them the maps? Jimmie rode on, raging in-
wardly. If he had been a despatch-rider he would have known
all about this, but he was only a repair-man, and they had had
no business to put such a job off on him !
There were woods about him now, the trees smashed up by
shells, and Jimmie considered it the part of prudence to get off
his machine and steal forward and peer out to see if there were
Germans in the opening beyond. And suddenly his knees gave
way, because of the fright he was in, with all this deadly racket.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN 225
He became violently sick at his stomach, and began to act as
he had acted on the first three days of his ocean passage from
New York. At the same time all the other functions of his
body began to operate. A group of Frenchmen passing by burst
into hilarious laughter; it was ridiculous and humiliating, but
Jimmie was powerless to help it — ^he wasn't cut out for a soldier,
he hadn't agreed to be a soldier, they had had no business
sending him up here where vast craters of shell-holes were open-
ing in the ground, and whole trees were being lifted out of the
earth, and the air was full of a stink which might require a gas-
mask or might not — ^how was poor Jimmie to tell?
IV
He mastered the awful tre!mbling of his knees and the
grotesque efforts of his body to get rid of everything inside him,
and got on his machine again and stole ahead. He could only
go a few rods at a time, because the road was so cut up. Should
he leave the machine and run for it ? Or should he go back and
tell them their infernal maps were all wrong, there was no fork
in the road? Ko — for there at last was the fork, and after
Jimmie had ridden and run a hundred yards farther, there was
a wheat-field, and a line of woods, and at the edge of it four
guns belching flame and smoke and racket. Jimmie stood his
machine in a ditch and went tearing across the fields, wild with
relief, because he had found his "Botteree Normb Cott," and
could hand over his precious packet and get out of this mess as
fast as two wheels would take him.
But to his dismay he found that it wasn't the French battery,
it was an American battery; the French battery was farther
ahead, and a little to the right; the officer gave directions, tak-
ing it entirely for granted that Jimmie would go on to his goal.
But then came another ofiicer. "What have you got there ?"
And when Jimmie answered maps, he demanded them; he
seemed as greedy for maps as a child for his gifts on Christnias
morning. He ripped open the packet — what is called "cutting
red tape" in the army — and spread out the papers and began
to call out figures to another officer who sat on a camp-stool at
a little folding table, with many sheets of figures in front of
him. This officer went on noting down the information— and
the men at the guns went on shoving in shells and stepping back
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226 JIMMIE HIG6INS
while the screaming messengers were hurled upon their way.
In the rear were other men, wheeling up ammunition, unloading
one of the big camions which Jimmie had been dodging on
the roads. It was a regular factory, set up there in the middle
of the fields, despatching destruction to the unseen foe.
"We're having the hell of a time," remarked the officer, as
he folded up the maps again and handed them to Jimmie. "Our
wires have been cut three times in the last half hour, and we
have to shoot blind."
"Where are the Germans?" asked Jimmie.
"Somewhere up ahead there."
"Have you seen them ?"
"Good Lord, no! We hope to move before they're that
near !"
Jimmie felt a bit reassured by the quiet, business-like de-
meanour of all the men in this death-factory. If they could
stand the racket, no doubt he could; only, they were all to-
gether, while he had to go off by himself. Jimmie wished ha
had enlisted in the artillery !
He shoved the maps into the inside pocket of his jacket,
and chased back to his machine and set out. He took a side-
path as directed, and then a wood-road — and then he got lost.
That was all there was to it — he was hopelessly lost ! The path
didn't behave at all as the one he was looking for. It went
through a long stretch of woods with shattered trees lying this
way and that; then it crossed a field of grain, and then it
plunged down into a ravine, and climbed to the other side, and
up a ridge and down again. "Hell!" said Jimmie to himself.
And if you could imagine all the noises in all the boiler-fac-
tories in America, you would have something less than the racket
in that woods through which Jimmie was wandering, saying.
"Hell!" to himself.
He got to the top of the ridge, puffing and panting and
dripping perspiration; and there suddenly he jumped from his
machine and ran with it behind a tree-trunk and stood anxiously
peering out. There were men ahead; and what sort of men?
Jimmie tried to remember the pictures of Germans he had
seen, and did they look like this ? The air was full of smoke,
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN 227
which made it hard to decide ; but gradually Jimmie made out
one group, dragging a machine-gun on wheels ; they placed it
behind a ridge of ground, and began to shoot in the direction
of Germany. So Jimmie advanced, but with hesitation, not
wanting to interfere with the aiming of the gun, which was mak-
ing a noise like a rivetting machine, only faster and louder.
It had a big round cylinder for a barrel, and the men were feed-
ing it long strips of cartridges out of a box, and were so intent
on the process that they paid no attention whatever to Jimmie.
He stood and stared, spell-bound. For these creatures seemed
not men, but hairy monsters out of caves — ragged, plastered
with mud, grimed and smoke-blackened, with their faces drawn,
their teeth shining like the teeth of angry dogs. Jimmie for-
got all about the enemy, he saw only this roaring, flame-vomit-
ing machine, and the men who were a part of it.
Suddenly one of the men leaped up, a little hairier and a
little blacker than the rest, and shouted, "Ah derry-air! Ah
derry-air!" And the gun stopped roaring and vomiting flame,
and the men laid hold and began to tug and strain to draw it
back. The leader continued exhorting them; until suddenly
an amazing thing happened — right in the midst of his shouting,
the whole of his mouth and lower jaw disappeared. You did not
see what became of it — ^it just vanished into nothingness, and
there in the place of it was a red cavern, running blood. The
man stood with his startled eyes shining white in his black and
hairy face, and gurgling noises coming out — as if he thought
he was still shouting, or could if he tried harder.
The others paid not the least attention to this episode ; they
continued tugging at the gun. And would you believe it, the
man with no mouth and jaw fell to helping again ! The wheels
struck a rise in the ground, and he waved his hands in im-
potent excitement, and then rushed at Jimmie, exposing to the
horrified little machinist the full ghastliness of that red cavern
running blood.
Jimmie tried his magic formula: "Botteree Normb Cott."
But the man waved his hands frantically and grabbed Jimmie
by the arm — the very incarnation of that Monster of Militarism
which the little machinist had been dodging for four years!
He pushed Jimmie towards the gun, and the other men shouted :
"Asseestay!" So of course there was nothing for Jimmie to
do but lay hold and tug with the rest.
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228 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Presently they got the wheels to moving, and rolled the thing
up the ridge. A wagon came bumping through the woods, and
the men at the gun gave a gasp which was meant to be a cheer,
and one of them laid hold of Jimmie again, crying: "Portay!
Portay !" He dragged out a heavy box and loaded it into Jim-
mie's arms, and carried another himself, and so in a few moments
the machine-gun was drumming, and Jimmie went on carrying
boxes. The men who were driving the wagon leaped upon the
horses and drove away; and still Jimmie carried boxes, blindly,
desperately. Was it because he was afraid of the little French
demon who was shouting at him ? No, not exactly, because when
he went back with a box he saw the little demon suddenly double
up like a jack-knife and fall forward, '^.e did not make a
sound, he did not even kick ; he lay with his face in the dirt and
leaves — and Jimmie ran back for another box.
VI
He did it because he understood that the Germans were com-
ing. He had not seen them; but when the gun fell silent he
heard whining sounds in the air, as if f rpm a litter of elephan-
tine puppies. Sometimes the twigs of trees fell on him, the
dirt in front of him flew up into his face ; and always, of course,
everywhere about him was that roar of bursting shells which
he had come to accept as a natural part of life. And suddenly
another man went down, and another — there were only two left,
and one of them signalled to Jimmie what to do, and Jimmie
did not say a word, he just went to work and learned to run a
machine-gun by the method favoured by modern educators —
by- doing.
Presently the man who was aiming the gun clapped his hand
to his forehead and fell backwards. Jimmie was at his side, and
the gun was shooting — so what more natural than for Jimmie
to move into position and look along the sights ? It was a fact
that he had never aimed any sort of gun in his life before;
but he was apt with machinery — and disposed to meddle into
things, as we know.
Jimmie looked along the sights ; and suddenly it seemed as
if the line of distant woods leaped into life, the bushes vomit-
ing grey figures which ran forward, and fell dovra, and then
leaped up and ran and fell down again. "Eel vienn!" hissed
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN 229
the man at Jimmie's side. So Jimmie moved the gun here and
there, pointing it wherever he saw the grey figures.
Did he kill any' Germans? He was never entirely sure in
his own mind ; always the idea pursued him that maybe he had
been making a fool of himself, shooting bullets into the ground
or up into the air — and the poilus at his side thinking he must
know all about it, because he was one of those wonderful Ameri-
cans who had come across the seas to save la belle France I The
Germans kept falling, but that proved nothing, for that was the
method of their advance anyway, and Jimmie had no time to
count and see how many fell and how many got up again. All
he knew was that they kept coming — more and more of them^
and nearer and nearer, and the Frenchmen muttered curses, and
the gun hammered and roared, until the barrel grew so hot that
it burned. And then suddenly it stopped dead !
"Sockray !" cried the two Frenchmen, and began frantically
working to take the gun to pieces; but before they had worked
a minute one of them clapped his hand to his side and fell back
with a cry, and a second later Jimmie felt a frightful blow on
his left arm, and when he tried to lift it and see what was
wrong, half of it hung loose, and blood ran out of his sleeve !
VII
That was too much for the remaining Frenchman. He
caught Jimmie by the other arm, exclaiming, "Vennay! Ven-
nay I" Apparently that meant to run away ; Jimmie didn't want
to run away, but the Frenchman chattered so fast, and tugged
so hard, and Jimmie was half dazed anyhow with pain, so he
let himself be dragged back. And presently they came to a
dead soldier lying with a gun by his side, and the Frenchman
grabbed the gun and unstrapped the cartridge-belt, apd then
threw himself down behind a big rock. Jimmie remembered
the automatic which he had strapped at his waist; he held it
out to the Frenchman, shaking his head and saying, "No savvy !
No work !" — as if he thought the Frenchman would understand
bad English better than good English! But the Frenchman
understood the head-shaking, and showed Jimmie how to move
the little catch which released the trigger for firing. With
hasty fingers he tore oif the sleeve of Jimmie's shirt, and bound
up his arm tightly with a bandage from his kit; then he raised
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230 JIMMIE HIGGINS
up over the rock, and cursed the sockray Bosh and began to fire.
Jimmie got up the nerve to peer out, and there were the
grey figures, much nearer now, and he knew they were Germans
because they were like the pictures he had seen. They were
running at him, firing as they came, and Jimmie fired his re-
volver, shutting his eyes because he was scared of it. But then,
finding that it behaved .all right, he fired again, and this time
he did not close his eyes, because he saw a big German running
straight towards him, the fury of battle in his face. It was
plain what this German meant to do — to leap on Jimmie with
his sharp bayonet j and somehow Jimmie never once thought of
his pacifist arguments — he fired, and saw the German fall, and
was murderously glad at the sight.
There were shots from behind him; apparently there had
been a lot of Frenchmen hidden in these woods, and the enemy
was not finding it easy to advance. Jimmie's companion jumped
up and ran again, and Jimmie followed, and a hundred yards
or so back they came to a shell-hole with half a dozen poilus in
it. Jimmie tumbled in, and the men chattered at him, and gave
him more cartridges, so that when the Germans appeared again
he did his part. A bullet took a lump of hair off his temple,
and shrapnel exploding nearby almost split his ear-drums; but
still he went on shooting. His heart was reaUy in the job now,
he was going to stop these Bosh or bust. With five Frenchmen,
two of them wounded, he held the shell-hole for an hour; one of
them ran back and staggered up with a supply of ammunition,
and loaded up a rifle for Jimmie, and laid it so that he could
manage it with one hand. So Jimmie went on shooting, half-
dead, half-blind, haM-choked with powder smoke.
The sockray Bosh made anpther charge, and this was the
end, ev^ry man in the shell-hole knew. There were literally
swarms of the grey figures, their bullets came like a shower of
hail. Jimmie decided to wait till the enemy was near enough
for him to aim the revolver with effect. He crouched, watch-
ing a Frenchman with the life-blood oozing out of a hole in his
chest; then he raised up and emptied his automatic, and still
there were Germans rushing on.
Jimmie was so very tired now, he really did not care very
much what happened; he knelt in the hole,', looking up, and
suddenly he saw the huge figure of a German looming above
him, his rifle poised. Jimmie closed his eyes and waited for
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JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN 231
the blow, and suddenly the German came down with a crash on
top of him.
Jimmie' thought for sure he must be dead ; he lay wonder-
ing, was this immortality? But it did riot seem like either
heaven or hell as he had imagined them, and gradually he realised
that the German was writhing and moaning. Jimmie wriggled
from under, and looked up, just in time to see another German
loom over the shell-holey and pitch forward and hit on his
face.
It was evident that somebody farther back was attending to
these Germans; so Jimmie lay still, with a feeble flicker of hope
in his heart. The rattle of shots went on, a battle that lasted
ten or fifteen minutes, but Jimmie was too tired to peer out and
see how matters were going. Presently he heard some one
running up behind him, and he looked around and up, and
saw two men Jump into the shell-hole. He took one glance,
and his heart leaped. The doughboys !
vin
Yes, sir, there 'were two doughboys in the shell-hole ! Jim-
mie had seen so many tens of thousands of them that he had
no doubt. Compared with the war-battered poilus, they were
like soldiers out of a fashion-plate: smooth-shaven, with long
chins and thin hips, and a thousand other details which made
you realise that home was home, and better than any other
place in the world! And oh, the beautiful business-like pre-
cision of these fashion-plate soldiers ! They never said a word,
they never even glanced about ; they just threw themselves down
at the edge of the shell-hole, and leaned their riiies over and
set to work. You didn't need to see — ^you could tell from the
look on these men's faces that they were hitting something !
Presently came two more, leaping in. Without so much as
A nod of greeting, they settled do-wn and went to shooting; and
when they had used up most of their cartridges, one of them
got up and shouted to the rear, and there came a man running
with a fresh supply in a big pouch.
Later on came three more with rifles. Apparently there
were not so many Germans now, for these newcomers found time
for words. "They told us to hold a line back there," said one.
"But heU!"
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232 JIMMIE HIGGINS
"There's more Huns up ahead," said another. "Let^s get
'em."
"Just as well now as later," said a third.
"You stay behind and get that finger tied up," said the first
speaker; but the otheij told him to go and get his own fingers
tied up.
Then one of them looked about and spied Jimmie. "Why,
here's a Yank !" he cried. "What you doin' here ?"
Jimmie answered : "I'm a motor-cycle man, and they sent me'
with maps for a battery, but I think it's been captured long
ago."
"You're wounded," said the other.
"It ain't much," said Jimmie, apologetically. "It was a
long time ago anyhow."
"Well, you go back," said the doughboy. "We're here now —
it'll be all right." He said it, not boastingly, but as a simple
matter of fact. He was a mere boy, a rosy-cheeked kid with
a little ugly pug-nose covered with freckles, and a wide, grin-
ning mouth. But to Jimmie he seemed just the loveliest boy
that had ever come out of the U. S. A. "Can you walk?" he
asked.
"Sure!" said Jimmie. \
"And these Frenehies ?" The doughboy looked at the others.
"You savvy their lingo?" When Jimmie shook his head, he
turned to the battle-worn hairy ones. "You fellows go back,"
he said. "We don't need you now.'' When they stared un-
comprehending, he asked : "Polly voo Francy ?"
"We, we!" cried they, in one voice.
"Well then," said the doughboy, "go back! Go home!
Toot sweet ! Have sleep I Eest ! We lick 'em Heinies !" As
the poilus did not show much grasp of this kind of "Francy,"
the doughboy boosted them to their feet, pointed" to the rear,'
patted them on the back, and grinned with his wide mouth.
"Good boy! Go home! American! American!" — as if that
was enough to make clear that the work of France in this war
was done I The poilus looked over the top of the shell-hole, and
saw a swarm of those new fashion-plate soldiers, darting for-
ward through the woods, throwing themselves down and shoot-
ing at the sockray Bosh. They looked at the rosy-cheeked boy
with the grateful faces of dogs, and shouldered their packs and
rifles and set out for the rear, helping Jimmie, who suddenly
found himself very wq^'^tj^Qiy-m^^ff^littiag headacha
JIMMIE HIGGINS MEETS THE HUN 233
IX
These doughboys had a song that Jimmie had heard all the
time: "The Yanks are coming!" And now the song needed
to be rewritten : "The Yanks are here !" All these woods through
which Jimmie had blundered with his motor-cycle were now
swarming with nice, new, clean-shaven, freshly-tailored sol-
dier-boys, turned loose to get their first chance at the Hun.
Four years they had been reading about him and hating him,
a year and a half they had been getting ready to hit him —
and now at last they were turned loose and told to go to it!
Back on the roads was an endless procession of motor-trucks,
with doughboys, and also , marines, or "leather-necks," as they
were called. They had started at four o'clock that morning,
and ridden all day packed in like sardines; and here, a mile
or two back in the woods, the trucks had come to a halt, and
the sardines had jumped out and gone into this war !
Jimmie did not realise till long afterwards what a world-
drama he had been witnessing. For four months the Beast had
been driving at Paris; irresistibly, incessantly, eating his way
like a forest fire, spreading ever wider and more fearful deso-
lation — ^this Beast with the Brains of an Engineer ! The world
had shuddered and held its breath, knowing that if he got to
Paris it would mean the end of the war, and of all things
that free men value. And now here he made his last supreme
rush, and the French lines wavered and cracked and gave way;
and so in this desperate crisis they had brought up the truck-
loads of ddughboys for their first real test against the Beast.
The orders had been to hold at all hazards; but that had
not been enough for the doughboys, they and the leather-necks
had seized the offensive and sent the Germans reeling back.
The very pride of the Prussian army had been worsted by
these new troops from overseas, at whom they had mocked,
whose very existence they had scouted.
It was a blow from which "Fritz" never recovered ; he never
gained another foot, and it was the beginning of a retreat that
did not stop until it reached the Ehine. And the Yanks
had done it — ^the Yanks, with the help of Jimmie Higgins!
For Jimmie had got there first; Jimmie had held the fort
while the Yanks were coming! Yes, truly; if he had n't
stuck by that machine-gun and helped to work it, if he hadn't
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234 JIMMIE HIGGINS
hid in that shell-hole, emptying the contents of a rifle and an
automatic pistol into the charging Huns, if he hadn't held them
up that precious hour — why, they might have swept over this
position, and the Yanks might not have had a chance to de-
ploy, and the victory of "Chatty Terry" might not have gone
resounding down the ages! The whole course of the world's
history might have been different, if one little Socialist ma-
chinist from Leesville, U. S. A., had not chanced to be wan-
dering through "Bellow Wood" in search of a fabulous and never-
discovered "Botteree Normb Cott!"
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CHAPTER XXIV
JIMtMIE HIGGINS SEES THE OTHEE 8IDB
pJUT these exultations and glory-thoughts were reserved for
■^ a later stage of Jimmie Higgins's life. At present he was
weak, and his head was splitting, and his left arm burning like
fire. And on top of this came a happening so strange that it
drove the whole battle from his thoughts. He was walking on
a path with his French companions, when one of them noticed
a man in a French unifoim lymg on the ground a little way
to one side. He was not a solaier, but a hospital-orderly or
stretcher-bearer, as you could tell by tne white bandage with a
red cross on his arm. He had been shot through the shoulder,
and some one had plugged up the wound and left him; so now
the French soldiers helped him to his feet and started to lead
him back. Jimmie watched them, and when he saw the man's
face, the conviction stole over him that he had seen the face
before. He had seen it, or one incredibly like it — and under
circumstances of intense emotion. The old emotion stirred in
the deeps of his subconsciousness, and suddenly it burst to the
surface, an explosion of excitement. It could not be! The
idea was absurd! But — it must be! It was! The wounded
French stretcher-bearer was Lacey Granitch !'
The young heir of the Empire Machine Shops might never
have known the little Socialist machinist; but recognition was
so evident on Jimmie's face, that Lacey was set groping in his
own mind. Now and then as the party walked along he stole
an uneasy glance at his fellow-countryman ; and presently when
they struck a road, and sat down to rest and wait for a vehicle
of some sort, Lacey put himself beside Jimmie and began:
"You're the fellow that was in the house that night, aren't
you?"
16 235
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236 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Jimmie nodded; and the young lord of Leesville looked
at him nneasily, looked away, and then looked back. "I've got
something I want to ask you," he said.
"What's that?"
"Don't give me away."
"How do you mean ?"
"Don't tell who I am. There's no reason why anybody should
know, I'm trying to get away from it."
"I see," said Jimmie. "I won't tell."
"You promise?"
"Sure."
Then was a silence. Then suddenly, with no reason that
Jimmie could see, the other exclaimed: "You'll tell!"
"But I won't!" protested Jimmie. "What makes you say
so?"
"You hate me!"
Jimmie hesitated, as if investigating his own mind. "No,"
he said, "I don't hate you — ^not any more."
"God !" exclaimed the other. "You don't need to — ^I've
paid all I owe !" ^
Jimmie studied his f ape. Yes, you could see that Was true.
Ifot merely was Lacey haggard, his features drawn with the
pain he was enduring ; there were lines in his face that had not
been put there by a few days of battle, nor even by a couple
of years of war. He looked twenty years older than the insolent
young aristocrat whom Jimmie had seen hurling defiance at the
Empire strikers. , ■
His eyes were searching Jimmie's anxiously, pleadingly. '
"I had to get away," he said. "I couldn't face it — everybody :
staring at me, grinning at me behind my back ! I tried to
enlist in the American army, but they wouldn't have me — ^not
to do any sort of work. So I came to France, where they need
men badly — ^they let me carry a stretcher. I've been through
it all now — more than a year. I've been wounded twice be-
fore, but I can't seem to get killed, no matter where I go.
It's the feUows that want to live that get killed— damn it!**
The speaker paused, as if seeing visions of the men whom
he had seen die when they wanted to live. When he went on,
it was in a voice of humble entreaty. "I've tried to pay for my
blunders. All I ask now is to be let alone, and not have every-
body gossiping about me. Thafs fair, isn't it?"
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JIMMIB HIGGINS SEES THE OTHER SIDE 237
Jimmie answered: "I give you my word — I won't tell a
30ul about it"
"Thank you," said Lacey ; and then, after a moment's pause,
"My name is Peterson. Herbert Peterson."
A truck came along and gave them a lift to the nearest
dressing-station : a couple of tents with big red crosses on them,
and a couple more being put up, and motor-cars bringing nurces
and supplies, and others with loads of wounded, French and
American. Jimmie was so weak now that he hardly cared about
anything; he took his place in a row of wounded men, waiting
patiently, trying not to make a fuss, because this was war,
and the Hun had to be licked, and everybody was doing his
best. He lay down on the ground, and shut his eyes; and
gradually there came to him a familiar odour. At first he
thought it was the product of his imagination — because he had
just met Lacey Granitch, and been reminded of the night when
he and Lizzie had crouched in the room of the lonely farm-
house, and listened to the sounds and smelled the odour through
the door. And presently Jimmie heard the very same sounds
from the tent — ^moans and shrieks, babbling as of insane men.
How strange that both times when he smelt this odour and
heard these cries he should be with the young master of the
Empire Shops!
Jimmie's turn came, and they led him into the tent, making
short work with him — ^merely ascertaining that no artery was
cut and that he would not bleed to death, and then tagging him
for the brigade hospital. They loaded him into a truck with
a score of other "sitting cases," including Lacey Granitch,
and treated him to a long ride which he did not at all enjoy.
At the hospital, which was a big group of tents, now swarming
with activity, Jimmie waited his turn again — so many wounds
all at once, and so few to tend them !
At last he was led into the operating-place; the first sight
that greeted his eyes being a couple of orderlies carrying out
a tub filled with sawed oS arms and legs and miscellaneous
fragments of meiu There was a surgeon with a white costume
smeared with blood, and a white mask over his face, and sev-
eral nurses with white masks also. Nobody greeted him, or
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238 JIMMIE HIGGINS
stopped for preliminaries — ^they laid him on the operating-table,
and covered all but his shattered arm with a rubber shejet,
and slit off his bandages, and then a nurse put something over
his face and said, "Breathe deeply, please."
It was that ghastly odour again, but overpowering now.
Jimmie breathed, and everything began to rock and swim, his
head began to roar, worse than when he had fought the machine-
gun. He could not stand any more of it; he cried and struggled
to get loose, but they had strapped his feet, and some one
held his other arin, so his frantic efforts were of no avail.
He began to fall; head over heels he went tumbling, into
vast bottomless abysses — down, down, down. He heard a strange
voice saying: "Their collars are too tight." The words rang
in his ears, they assumed monstrous and overwhelming signifi-
cance, they became a whole universe by themselves — ^"Their
collars are too tight !" All the rest of creation ceased, the lamp
of being went out; there remained only a voice, pronouncing
amid whirling infinities : "Their collars are too tight !"
Ill
Somewhere in the vast spaces of chaos was a snore. Then,
ages afterwards, out of the void there arose a mysterious for-
gotten effort to get something out of a choking throat. After
several such unaccountable manifestations, the feeble flame of
consciousness that called itself Jimmie Higgins flickered up,
and he realised that it was he who was trying desperately not to
be choked. Also he realised that he was become one horrible
pain ; somebody had driven a nail through his arm, and fastened
him tight to the ground by it; also they had blown up his
stomach, so that it was threatening to burst, and when he choked,
it was an agony. He gasped for help, but no one paid any atten-
tion to him; he was all alone in the dungeon-house of pain,
buried and forgotten forever.
Gradually he emerged from the misty regions of anaesthesia,
and realised that he was on a stretcher, and being carried. He
moaned for water, but no one would give it to him. He pleaded
that there was something dreadful wrong with him, he was
going to burst inside; but they told him that was only ether
gas, and not to worry he would soon be all right. They laid
him on a cot in a room, one of a long row, and left him to
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JIMMIE HIGGINS SEES THE OTHER SIDE 239
wrestle with the demons all alone. This was war, and a man
who had only a shattered arm might count himself among the
lucky.
So through a night and a day Jimmie lay and made the
best of a bad situation. There were two nurses in this tent, and
Jimmie, having nothing to do but watch them, conceived a
bitter rage at them both. One was lean and angular and sal-
low; she went about her duties grimly, with no nonsense, and
Jimmie did not realise that she was ready to drop with ex-
haustion. The other was pretty, with fluffy yellow hair, and
was flirting shamelessly with a young doctor. Perhaps Jimmie
should have reflected that men were being killed rapidly these
days, and it was necessary that some should concern themselves
with supplying the future generations; but Jimmie was in no
mood to probe the philosophy of flirtation — ^he remembered the
Honourable Beatrice Clendenning, and wished he was back in
Merrie England. Also he remembered his pacifist principles,
and wished he had kept out of this hellish war !
But his pain became somewhat less, and they loaded him
into an ambulance and took him farther back, to a big base
hospital. Here, before long, he was able to sit up, and to be
wheeled out into the sunshine, and to discover the nnguessed
raptures of convalescence^— the amazing continuous appetite, the
amazing continuous supply of good things to eat and drink;
the bliss of looking at trees and flowers, and listening to the
singing of birds, and telling other people how you rode out
on a motor-cycle to look for "Botteree Normb Cott" — ^what the
hell was that, anyhow? — ^and ran into the whole Hun army,
and held it up for a couple of hours, and won the battle of
Chatty Terry aU alone!
IV
One of the first persons Jimmie saw was Lacey Granitch,
and Lacey took him off to a corner of the park and said : 'Ton
haven't told any one?"
"No, Mr. Granitch," said Jimmie.
"My name is Peterson," said Lacey.
"Yes, Mr. Peterson," said Jimmie.
It was a strange acquaintance between these two, chosen
from the opposite poles of social life, and brought together in
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240 JIMMIE HIGGINS
the democracy of pain. Jimmie had the young lord of Lees-
ville down, and might have walked on his face; but strange
as it might seem, Jimmie took towards him an attitude of
timid humility. Jimmie felt that he had betrayed him to a
cruel and hideous vengeance; moreover, in spite of all his revo-
lutionary fervours, Jimmie could not forget that he was talk-
ing to one of the masters of the world. You might hate with
all your soul the prestige and power that went with the Granitch
millions, but you couldn't be indifferent to it, you could never
feel natural in the presence of it.
As for Lacey, he was no longer the proud, free, rich young
aristocrat; he had suffered, and learned respect for his fellow-
men, regardless of money. He heard how this little Socialist
machinist, whom once he had cursed in a herd of strikers, had
ridden into the jaws of death and helped to nail the Beast
through the snout! So he wanted to know about him, and
these two sat conversing for hours, each of them discovering
a new world. ]
Just now all Europe and America were engaged in furious
argument on the subject of the Bolsheviki. Had they betrayed
democracy to the Hun, or were they, as they claimed, leading
the way for mankind to a newer and broader kind of democracy ?
Lacey, of course, believed the former — everybody in the Amer-
ican army believed it, and in fact everybody in Prance, except
a few dyed-in-the-wool reds. When Lacey found that Jimmie
was one of these reds, he questioned him, and they had it hot
and heavy for days. How could men have done what Lenine
and Trotzky had done, unless they were paid German agents?
Bo Jimmie had to set forth the theory of internationalism; the
Bolsheviki were making propaganda in Germany, they were
doing more to break the power of the Kaiser than even the
AUied armies. How did Jimmie know that ? He didn't know
the details, of course, but he knew the soul of internationalism;
he could tell what Lenine and Trotzky were doing, because he
knew what he would be doing, were he in their place!
They talked on and on, and the young lord of Leesville,
who would some day fall heir to an enormous fortune, and had
been trained to think of it as his by every right, human and
divine, heard a little runt of a machinist from the shops explain
how he was going to seize that mass of property — ^he and the
rest of hia fellows combined into one big union — and how thej
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JIMMIE HIGGINS SEES THE OTHER SIDE 241
■were going to run it, not for Lacey's benefit, but for the benefit
of all society. Jimmie forgot all respect for persons when he
got on this theme; this was his dream, this was the proletariat
expropriating the expropriators, and he told aboiit it with shin-
ing eyes. In times past the young lord of Leesville would have
answered him with insolent serenity, perhaps with a threat of
machine-guns ; but now he said hesitatingly that it was a large
programme, and he feared it couldn't be made to work.
He was moved to question Jimmie about his past life, so
as to understand how such fanaticism had come to be. So
Jimmie told about starvation and neglect, about overwork and
unemployment, about strikes and jails and manifold oppressions.
The other listened, nodding his head. Yes, of course, that was
enough to drive any man to extremes. And then, thinking
further, "I wonder," said he, "which of us two got the worse
deal from life."
Jimmie was without means of understanding that remark.
Lacey had had everything, hadn't he ? To which Lacey answered,
"I had too much, and you had too little; and which is worse
for a man ?"
By way of making clear what was in his mind, he told Jimmie
a little about his own life. He pictured a big household, with a
father beset by business cares, and turning over the managing
of his home to employes. "My mother was a fool," said
Lacey. "I suppose it sounds bad for a man to say that, but
I've known it all my life. Maybe the old man was too busy
to look up a woman with sense — or maybe he didn't believe
there were anyl Anyhow, my mother's idea was to be seen
spending more money than any other woman in town ; that was
her 'position,' and her children were part of the show — we must
wear more clothes and bully more servants than anybody else's
children. I've thought it all out — I've had lots of opportunity
for thinking of late. I can't remember when I didn';t hit my
nurse in the face if she tried to take away a toy from me.
I never had to ask for anything twice — if I did, I went into a
tantrum and got it, I learned to smoke and to drink wine,
and then came the women — ^the women finished me, as yen
know."
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242 JIMMIE HIGGINS
He paused; and Jimrnie nodded sympathetically, remem-
bering the story of the eight chorus-girls about whom "Wild
Bill" had read out. in the local.
"It's hell for a boy to have a lot of money," said Lacey,
"and to be preyed on by women. You have your human emo-
tions, of course — you're absolutely compelled to believe in some
woman; and they're all perfectly cold-blooded — at least the
iinds that a rich boy meets. I don't mean only adventuresses —
I mean the society-girls, the ones you're supposed to marry.
Their damned old harpies of mothers are pushing behind them,
of course — laying out everything they own for clothes, and
not knowing how they can pay the bills for last season. They
set out to catch you, they're mad with the determination, they
don't care about reputation, they'll do any damned thing. You
take them out in your car, and then they want to get out and
pick flowers, and they draw you into the woods, and presently
you've got hold of their hands, and then you're hugging and
Mssing them, and then you go the limit. But then you've got to
marry them; and when they find you won't, they have hys-
terics, and say they're going to shoot their heads off; only
they don't shoot their heads off, they kiss you some more, and
borrow your diamond scarf-pin and forget to return it."
The young lord of Leesville fell silent. Sombre memories
possessed him, and Jimmie, darting a swift glance at him,
saw the look of weary age on his face. "I've never talked with
anybody about what happened at the end," said he, "and I
never mean to; but I'll say this much — the time I loved a
married woman was the only honest love I ever had, because
she was the only woman who wasn't looking to marry me!"
' That was of course too subtle for a man like Jimmie Higgins.
But this much the little Socialist got — ^that the heir of the
Granitch fortune had been in truth a miserably unhappy mortal.
And this was an extraordinary revelation to Jimmie, who had
taken it for granted that the rich were the lucky ones of earth.
He had hated them on the supposition that they were without
care; they were the Lotus-eaters, of whom the poet wrote that
they
"live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind,
For they He beside their nectar, and the bolts are huri'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Bound their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
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JIMMIE HIGGINS SEES THE OTHER SIDE 243
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight of famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands.
Clanging fights and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying
hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil.
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil.
But now Jimmie had crossed the social chasm, he had seen the
other side of the problem of riches and poverty. After that
revelation, he would be more merciful in his judgments of his
fellow-mortals; he would understand that the system in which
we are trapped makes true happiness impossible — for those
who have too much as well as for those who have too little.
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JIMMIB HIGGINS ENTEES INTO DANGEE
X^HILE Jimmie wandered through the streets of this French
' ' town, letting his broken arm get strong again, the death-
., grapple of the war continued. In mid-July the Germans made
a last desperate lunge at the Marne; they were stopped dead
in a couple of days by the French and Americans combined;
and then the Allied commander-in-chief struck back, smashing,
in the side of the German salient, and driving the enemy, still
fighting furiously, but moving back from the soil of France.
All France caught its breath with excitement, with relief
mingled with dread. So many times they had hoped, through
these four weary, hideous years, and so many^ times their hopes
had been dashed ! But this time there was no mistake — ^it was
really the turning of the tide. The enemy resisted at every
step, but he went on moving out of the salient, and the Allies
went on lunging — ^now here, now there, see-sawing back and
forth, and keeping their opponents bewildered.
Jimmie read about it in the army paper, the "Stars and
Stripes"; and now, for the first time in four years, Jimmie's
mind was one mind on the war. Jimmie was on, the field of
every battle, his teeth set, his hands clenched, his whole soul
helping at the job. He had got over the disorders of anaes-
thesia, and was forgetting the shock of his wound; he had
realised that wounds, and even death, were something a man
could bear — ^not cheerfully, of course, not lightly, but you could
bear them, if only you knew that the Beast was being put out
of business.
In the old days the word German had meant to Jimmie
fellows like Meissner and Forster and Schneider; but now it
neant a huge grey form looming over the edge of a shell-hole.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 245
its face distorted with hate, its bayonet poised to plunge. Per-
haps the most vivid impression of Jimmie's whole life was the
relief he had felt when he realised that some doughboy had
shot a bullet into that looming figure. Let there be more
doughboys, more and more, until the last figure had been shot 1
Jimmie knew, of course, that the policy he had been advocating
in America had not tended to that end ; if Jimmie in Leesville
had had his way, there would have been no doughboys to
rescue Jimmie at Chatty Terry! Jimmie was quite clear on
, that point now, and for the time being the pacifist was dead
in him.
He listened to the talk of the men in this hospital. They
had all been through the mill, they had got their wounds, light
or severe, but it had not broken their spirit — ^not a bit of it;
there was hardly one among them who was not hoping to get
cured and to get back into the game before it was over. That
was how they took it — a game, the most sensational, the most
thrilling that a man would ever play. These boys had been
brought up on foot-ball, the principal training and only real
interest in life of some hundreds of thousands of young Amer-
icans every year. They had brought the spirit and the method
of foot-ball with them into the army, and communicated it to
those less fortunate millions who had been peither to college
nor to high school: the team-work, the speed, the incessant,
gruelling drill, the utter, unquestioning loyalty, the persistent
searching of eager young minds for new combinations, new
tricks ; and above all the complete indifference to the possibility
of a broken collar-bone or a damaged heart-valve, provided only
that the game should be won !
This army was attacking a foe who relied on machine-guns
to break formations and give time to withdraw stores and big
guns to safety; so the life of young America for the moment
had become a study of the arts of rushing machine-guns. Jim-
mie listened to the conversation of the new men, and saw the
technique being worked out before his eyes. Tanks were all
right, aeroplanes were all right, when you had them; but
mostly you did not have them in time, so the doughboy was
learning to take machine-guns with the bayonet. You had a
little squad, trained like a foot-ball team, with its own sys-
tem of signals, its formations worked out by young heads put
together at night. It was a costly game — ^you would be lucky
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246 JIMMIE HIGGINS
if a third of the players came out alive; but if you could get
one man to the machine-gun with a bayonet, you had won the
game^because he would take the gun and turn it about on the
retreating Germans, and could kill enough of them in a minute
to make up for the losses of his squad.
II
Lacey Granitch's shoulder healed, and he went back to his
job. He told Jimmie what it had meant to him to meet a
Socialist; if he could believe what Jimmie believed, he wouldn't
mind living, even with his shame. Jimmie gave him the names
df books to read, and Lacey promised to read them ; of course
Jimmie was proud and happy — seeing a vision of the Empire
Machine Shops turned over to the control of the workers, the
capitalist system committing hari-kari in one American in-
dustry !
Jimmie got a letter from one of the workingmen in the
repair station where he had last worked, telling him that the
Americans had taken over this sector, and now there was a
big shop established, and when was he coming back? But
Jimmie was not so eager to come back; working on motor-
cycles did not seem a thrilling prospect to one who had held
up the whole Hun army and won the battle of Chatty Terry.
Having proven his mettle as a fighting man, Jimmie wondered
if there mightn't be some way for him to get into the real
army, and do a real man's work ? ,
He wrote a letter to the officer in command of his motor-
unit, telling what had happened to him, and couldn't it be
arranged? In reply the officer said that he would have an in-
vestigation made, and if Jimmie's story could be verified, he
would have honourable mention, and promotion of some sort.
And sure enough, a month later, when Jimmie was ready to
leave the hospital, came official notice that he was promoted to be
a sergeant of motor-transport, and ordered to report to head-
quarters in a certain harbour on the English channel for as-
signment. Sergeant Jimmie Higgins!
Jimmie reported, of course, and was put in charge of a
dozen cyclists and repair-men, newly arrived on a transport.
These men looked up to Jimmie as a veteran and hero, and
Jimmie, who had never enjoyed authority in his life before —
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 247
except you count Jimmie Junior and the two kids — may have
had his head turned just a little bit. But there was real work
to be done, and no time for strutting. There was excitement
in the air, wild rumour and speculation; this little unit of
Jimmie's, composed of specially fit men, was going somewhere
on a special errand — an expedition, evidently by sea. Nobody
was told where — that wasn't the way in the army ; but presently
there were issued sheepskin-lined coats and heavy wool-lined
boots — in the middle of August ! So they knew that they were-
bound for the far North, and for some time. Could it be a
surprise attack in the Baltic ? Either that, said the wise-heads,
or else Archangel. Jimmie had never heard of this latter place,
and had to ask about it. It appeared that the Allies had landed,
enormous masses of stores at this port in far Northern Russia;
and now that the Russians had dropped out of the war, the
Germans were threatening to take possession.
Jimmie was thrilled to the soles of his new wool-lined boots.
He was going to Russia, going to see the revolution! Jimmie
had but a vague idea of world-conditions now, for during the
past three or four months he had been reading only ofiBcial
papers, which confined their attention to the job, and carefully
omitted mention of difiiculties and complications. The people
with whom he talked insisted that it was necessary for the
AUies to do something to counter the Brest-Litovsk treaty;
if the Germans were allowed to take possession of helpless
Russia and use it for their purposes, they might hold out for
another hundred years. The Russian people themselves must
realise this, and welcome Allied help ! Jimmie wasn't sure on
this latter point, but he remembered the Rabin brothers and
their enthusiasm for the Allied cause, so he put his doubts
to sleep, and helped get his motor-unit stowed on board a trans-
port.
Ill
There came a passage across the North Sea and up the coast
of Norway; a region of fogs and restless winds, and incessant
deadly peril of submarine and mine. There were three trans-
ports in the expedition, and a couple of war-ships convoying
them, and half a dozen destroyers weaviug their foam-patterns
in and out. Every day the air grew colder, and the period of;
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248 JIMMIB HIGGINS
daylight shorter; they were entering the Land of the Midnight
Sun, but at the time of year -when midnight noons were ap-
proaching. The men had plenty of time for reading and talk ;
so Jimmie discussed the war from the Socialist point of view,
defending the Eussian revolutionists ; and so, as usual, he made
somebody angry, and got himseK and his seditious opinions
reported.
Lieutenant Gannet was the name of Jimmie's superior ofB-
cer. He had been a clerk in a cotton-mill before the war, and
had never had the exercise of authority. Now he had to learn
suddenly to give orders, and his idea of doing it was to be
extremely sharp and imperative. He was a deepfy conscientious
young man, keen on the war, and willing to face any hardship
or peril in fulfilment of his duty; but Jimmie could not have
been expected to appreciate that— all Jimmie knew was that
his superior had a way of glaring from behind his spectacles, as
if he was sure that some one was lying to him.
Lieutenant Gannet didn't ask what Jimmie had said ; he
told Jimmie what he had said, and informed him that that kind
of talk wasn't going on in the army while he was in hearing.
Jimmie's business was to keep some motor-cycles in repair,
and some cyclists on their Job ; about other matters let him hold
his tongue, and not try to run the affairs of the nation. Jim-
mie ventured the remark that he had said nothing but what
President Wilson was saying all along. To which the lieuten-
ant replied that he was not interested in Sergeant Higgins'
opinions of President Wilson's opinions — Sergeant Higgins was
to keep his opinions to himself, or he would get into serious
trouble. So Jimmie went away, seething with indignation, as
much of a rebel as he had ever been in Local LeesviUe.
What were the rights of a soldier anyway? Was he privi-
leged to discuss political issues, and to agree with the utter-
ances of the President of his country? Might he believe, as
the President believed, in a just peace and the right of all
peoples to freedom and self-determination, even though many
of the officers of the army hated and despised such ideas?
Jimmie didn't know, and there was nobody to tell him; but
Jimmie knew that he hadn't meant to give up his rights as a
citizen when he enlisted to fight for democracy, and if these
rights were taken away from him, it would not be without a
struggle.
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JIMMIE HIGKJINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 249
IT
The transports came into the regioiii of ice-hergs, and low-
hanging mists, and rocky cliffs covered with snow, and flocks
of sea-gulls flying oyer them. For days and nights on end they
steamed in those arctic waters, and came at last into the White
Sea, and the harbour of Archangel.
The Allies had been here since the beginning of the war,
building docks and sheds and railway yards; but they had
never been able to build enough, and the transport department
of the corrupt Russian government having gone to pieces, here
were mountains of supplies of every sort you could think of
for an army, piled high on the shores. At least, that was what
Jimmie had been told; he had read in the newspapers that the
statement was made officially in answer to questions in the
British parliament. Jimmie had understood that he was here
to save those mountains of supplies from the Germans, and he
was surprised when he looked about the harbour and saw no
mountains of any sort.
Back in the interior were vast trackless forests of fir-trees,
and moss-covered swamps in which in summer-time a man
would sink up to his neck. Now, in September, they were al-
ready frozen solid, and you travelled over them with a sledge
and a team of reindeer, bundled up ia furs and looking, ex-
cept for the whiskers, like the pictures of Santa Glaus you had
seen when you were a kid. But most of the traffic of the army
was upon the rivers which cut the forests and swamps, and
the single railroad, which was being put back into commission.
This country bad, of course, no roads on which motor-cycles
could be used, even in summer. Jimmie found that his job
would be confined to the city and the encampments near about.
A few streets would be kept clear of snow, and the little band of
messengers would scoot about them, now and then taking a
slide into a snow-bank and smashing things up. That would
have been all right, and Jimmie would have bossed the job and
been happy as be knew how to be— had only his mind been at
peace.
For the first few days, of course, he had no time to think,
he was as busy as an ant, getting himself and his men ashore,
and setting up their benches and tools in an iron shed, with a
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250 JIMMIB HIGGINS
roaring stove at each end, and heaps of fire-wood which the
peasants brought on heavy flat sledges dragged by reindeer.
Jimmie and his unit worked, not merely during the hours of
daylight, but most, of the hours of darfaiess, not stopping for
Sundays. There were five thousand men to be got ashore with
their supplies — and in a desperate rush, as if the Germans were
expected at any hour. It was some while before Jimmie found
time to go about the city, to meet the "Tommies," who had
been here a month before him, and to hear what they had done,
and what they were expecting to do.
Jimmie had understood that this expedition was to fight
the Germans; but now he became suspicious; apparently it
was to fight the Bolsheviki ! The social revolution had accom-
plished itself in Archangel, and a council of workingmen and
peasants had been in full control, when the British troops and
sailors had made a surprise attack and seized the port, driving
the revolutionists in confusion before them. Now they were
sending an expedition up the railroad, and another on steamers
up the North Dwina river, pursuing Eussian Socialists and
driving them back into frozen swamps ! And here were Amer-
ican troops, being hurried ashore, and outfitted and made ready
to join in what seemed to Jimmie to be warfare upon organised
workingmen !
Jimmie was almost beside himself with bewilderment. It
was all so new and strange to him — ^and he had nobody to advise
him. At home, if there were a Socialist problem to settle, he
would take it to Meissner or Stankewitz, or Comrade Gerrity
the organiser, or Comrade Mabel Smith, the chairman of the
Literature Committee. But now, in all this expedition Jimmie
did not know a single man who had any idea of radicalism;
they looked upon the Bolsheviki as mad dogs, as traitors, crim-
inals, lunatics, any word that seemed worst to you. The Bol-
sheviki had deserted the cause of the Allies, they had gbne into
league with Germany to betray democracy; so now the Amer-
icans had come to teach them the lesson of law and order. The
Americans looked upon themselves as an advance guard of a
vast expedition which was to march to Petrograd and Moscow,
and wipe the idea of Bolshevism off the map. And Jimmie
Higgins was to help! Jimmie Higgins, bound and gagged,
lashed to the chariot of Militarism, was to take part in destroy-
ing the first proletarian government in history !
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 251
The more Jimmie thought of it, the more indignant he be-
came; he took it as a personal outrage — a scurvy trick that had
been played upon him. He had swallowed their propaganda, he
had filled himself up with their patriotism, he had dropped
everything to come and fight for Democracy. He had gone
into battle, had risked his life, had suffered wounds and agony
for them. And now they had broken their bargain with him,
they had brought him here and ordered him to fight working men
— ^just as if he had been a militiaman at home! Democracy
indeed ! Here they were marching in, glorying in their purpose
to conquer the Russian revolutionists!
And Jimmie Higgins, under martial law, must obey and
hold his tongue! Jimmie thought of all his friends at home
who had denounced the military machine; he thought of Com-
rade Mary Allen, of Comrade Mabel Smith and Comrade Eve-
lyn Baskerville and Comrade Gerrity; he had rejected their
advice, and now, if they could see what he was doing, how they
would spurn him! Jimmie writhed at the very thought; nor
was he consoled when one of the men in his company gave him
an "inside" story of what was happening here — ^that in order to
persuade the British to submit their armies to the control of a
French general, and thus to save the situation in France, the
Americans had been forced to submit their own armies also;
and now they found themselves ordered to march in and fight a
revolutionary government which had repudiated its debt to
France, and so had given offence to a naturally frugal people.
Jimmie met a man whom he might almost have taken for
Deror Rabin, so much did he resemble the little Jewish tailor.
A big, black-whiskered peasant brought a load of wood for the
fires; and there was a Jew helping him — ^a chap with a sharp
face and keen black eyes, his cheeks sunken as if he had not had
enough to eat for years, and his chest racked by a cough. He
had wrapped his feet and his hands in rags, because he had
neither boots nor gloves; but he seemed cheerful, and presently,
as he dimped down a load, he nodded and said, "Hello !'
"Hello yourself I" replied Jimmie.
"I speak English," said the fellow.
It didn't surprise Jimmie that anybody should speak Eng-
17
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252 JIMMIE HIOGINS
lish; he was only Burpiiised when they didn't. So he, smiled
and said, "Sarei"
"I been in Ameriea," went on the other. "I vork by «y«»t'
shop in Grand Street."
You could see that he preferred gossiping to carrying wood ;
he stood about and questioned, "Vere you vork in America?"
When liie peasant grumbled at him in Russian, he w^it back
at his j.6b ; but as he went away, he said, "I talk nt y&a. some-
time about America." To which, of course, Jimmie answered
with a friendly assent. '
A couple of hours lat^, when he went out from his woiSe,
he found the little Jew waiting for him in the darkness. "I git
Icmesome sometime for America," he said; and walked down
the street with Jimmie, beating his thin arms to keep
warm.
"Why did you cmne back?" Jimmie inquired,
"I Bead about revolution. I tink maybe I git rich."
"Huh!" said Jimmie, and grinned. "What did you get?"
■"You belong to imdon in America?" coimtered the other.
"You bet I do!" said Jimmie.
"Vat sort of union?"
"Maohinisfs."
"You been on strike, maybe?"
«You bet I have!"
"You got licked, maybe ?"
«You betl"
"You don't never scab, hey?"
"Not much!"
"You vat you call class-conscious ?"
"You bet! I'm a Socialist!"
The other turned upon him, his voice trembling with sudden
excitement. "You got a red card?"
"You bd; !" said Jimmie. "Right inside my coat."
"My God !" cried the other. ^'A comrade!" He stretched
out bis hands, which were bundled up with old gunny-saddng,
to Jimmie. "Tovarish !" cried he. And standing thei« in the
freezing darkness, these two felt their hearts leap into a hot
glow. Here, under the Arctic Circle, in this wildeipess of ice
and desolation, even here the spirit of intemationa;! fraternity
was working its miracles !
But then, shaking with excitement, the little Jew pawed at
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JIMMIB HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 253
Jimmie with his bundled hands. "If you are Socialist, vy you
fight de Russian vorkers ?"
"I'm not figtting themf*
"You vear de uniform."
"I'm only a motor-cycle man."
"But you help ! You kill de Russian people ! You destroy
de Soviets! Vy?"
"I didn't know about it," pleaded Jimmie. "I wanted to
fight the Kaiser, and they brought me here without telling me."
"Ah ! So it iss vit militarism, vit capitalism ! Ve are slaves !
But ve vill be free! And you vill help, you vill not kill de
Russian vorkers !"
"I win not!" cried Jimmie, quickly.
And the little stranger put his arm through Jimmie's. "You
come vit me, quick ! I show you someting, tovarish !"
VI
They threaded the dark streets till they came to a row of
workingmen's hovels, made of logs, the cracks stuffed with mud
and straw — places in which an American farmer would not
have thought it proper to keep his cattle. "So live de vorkers,"
said the stranger, and he knocked on the door of one of the
hovels. It was unbarred by a woman with several children
about her skirts, and the men entered a cabin lighted by a
feeble, smoky lamp. There was a huge oven at one side, with a
kettle in which cabbage was cooking. The man said nothing
to the woman, but signed Jimmie to a seat before the oiven, and
fixed his sharp black eyes on his face.
"You show me de red card?" he said, suddenly.
Jimmie took otf his sheep-skin-Iined overcoat, and un-
buttoned his sweater underneath, and from an inside pocket
of his jacket took out the precious card with the due-stamps
initialled by the secretaries of Local Leesville and Local Hope-
land and Local Ironton. The stranger studied it, then nodded.
"Good? I trust you." As he handed back the card he re-
marked, "My name is Kalenkin. I am Bolshevik."
Jimmie's heart bounded— though he had guessed as much^
of coutse. "We called our local in Ironton Bolshevik," said
he.
' '^Dey drive us out from here," continued the Jew, "btit t
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254 JIMMIB HIGGINS
stay behind for propaganda. I look for comrades among de
Americans, de British. I say. Do not fight de vorkers, fight de
DMsters, de capitalists. You understand?"
"Sure !" said Jimmie.
"If de masters find me, dey kill me. But I trust you."
"I'll not tell!" said Jimmie, quickly.
"You help me," went on the other. "You go to de Amer-
ican soldiers, you say, De Eussian people have been slaves so
many years; now dey get free, and you come to kill dem and
make dem slaves again ! Vy iss it ? Vat viU dey say, tovarish V
Jimmie answered: "They say they want to lick the Kai-
ser."
"But ve help to lick de Kaiser! Ve fight him!"
"They say you've made peace with him."
"Ve fight vit propaganda — de vay de Kaiser fear most of
all. Ve spend millions of rubles, ve print papers, leaflets — ^you
know, comrade, vat Socialists do. Ve send dem into Germany,
ve drop dem by aeroplanes, ve have printing-presses in — vat
you call it, de Suisse, de Nederland — everyvere. De Germans
read, dey tink, dey say, Vy do ve fight for de Kaiser, vy do
ve not be free like de Russians? I know it, tovarish, I have
talked vit many German soldiers. It goes like a fire in Ger-
many. Maybe it take time — a year — ^two years — ^but some day
people see, de Bolsheviki vere right, dey know de vorkers, de
heart of de vorkers — dey have de life, de fire dat cannot be put
out in de heart 1"
"Sure," said Jimmie. "But you can't tell things like that
to the doughboys."
"My God!" said Kalenkin. "Don't I know? I vas in
America ! Dey tink dey are de people vat de good God made !
Dey know ever'tiUg — ^you cannot teach dem. Dey are democ-
racy; dey have no classes; vage-slaves — dat iss just foreign-
vat you call it — scum, hey ? Dey vill shoot us — ^I have seen how
dey beat de vorkers ven dey strike on Grand Street."
"I've been through it all," said Jimmie. "What can we
do?"
"Propaganda !" cried Kalenkin. "For de first time ve have
plenty money for propaganda — all de money in Bussia for propa-
ganda! Ever'vere in de vorld ve reach de vorkers — ever'vere
ve cry to dem : Rise ! Rise and break your chains ! You tink
dey vill not hear us, tovarish ! De capitalists know dey vill hear
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 255
us, dey tremble, so dey send armies to beat us. Dey tink de
armies vill obey — ^alvays — ^is it not so ?"
"They think the Russian people will rise against you."
At which the little man laughed, a wild, hilarious laugh.
"Ve have got our own government 1 For de first time in Rus-
sia, de first time in de vorld, de vorkers rule ; and dey tink ve
rise against ourselves ! Dey put up — ^vat you call it— puppets,
vat dey call Socialists, dey make a government here in Archangel,
vat dey call Russian! Dey fool demselves, but dey don't fool
de Russians 1"
"They think this government will spread," said Jimmie.
"It vill spread just so far as de armies go— just so far.
But in Russia, all de people come together — all are Bolsheviki,
ven dey see de foreign armies coming. And vy, tovarish ? Be-
cause dey know vat it means ven capitalists come to make new
governments for Russia. It means bonds — de French, de
British debt ! You know ?"
"Sure, I know," said Jimmie.
"It is billions, fifteen billions of roubles to France alone.
De Bolsheviki have said, Ve do not pay dem so quick. And for
vy? Vat did dey do vit dat money I Dey loaned it to de Tsar, and
for vat? To make slaves out of de Russian people, to put dem
in armies and make dem fight de Japanese, to make police-force
and send hundert thousand Russian Socialists to Siberia! Is
it not so? And Russian Socialists pay such debts? Not so
quick! Ve say, Ve had nothing to do vit such money! You
loaned it to de Tsar, now you collect it from de Tsar ! But dey
say. You must pay! And dey send armies, to take de land of
Russia, to take de oil and de coal and de gold. So, tovarish ! Dey
vill put down de Soviets ! But if so, dey must take ever* town,
ever* village in Russia — and all de time ve make propaganda
vit de soldiers, ve make it vit Frenchmen and Englishmen and
Americans, just like ve make it vit Germans !"
nt
The little man had made a long speech, and was exhausted;
the coughing seized him, and he pressed his hands to his chest,
and his white face flushed red in the firelight. The woman
brought him water to drink, and stood by him with a hand on
his shoulder; her broad peasant's face, deeply lined with care.
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256 JIMMIB HIGGINS
quivered at every spasm of the man's. Jiimnie qtiiveted too,
sitting there Witching, and facing in his own soul- a mighty
destiny. He knew the situation now, he knew his own duty.
It was perfectly plain, perfectly simple — ^his whole life had
been one long training for it. Something cried out in him,
in the words of another proletarian martyr, Let this cup pass
from me ! But he stifled the voice of his weakness, and after a
while he said, "Tell me what to do, comrade."
Kalenkin asked, "You have made propaganda in America?"
"Sure," said Jimmie. "I went to jail once fer makin' a
speech on the street."
And the other went to a comer of the cabin, and dug under
half a dozen cabbages, and brought out a packet. It contained
leaflets, a couple of hundred perhaps, and the Jew handed one
to Jimmie, explaining, "Dey ask me, How shall ve make de
Americans understand? I say, Dey must know how ve make
propaganda vit de Germans. I say. Print de proclamations vat
ve give to de German troops, and make English translation, so
de Americans and de Englishmen can read. You tink dat help?
Jimmie took the leaflet and moved the lamp a bit nearer
and read :
"Proclamation of the Army Committee of the Bussian
Twelfth Army (Bolshevik), posted throughout the city of Biga
during its evacuation by the Eussians:
"German Soldiers!
"The Russian soldiers of the Twelfth Army draw your
attention to the fact that you are carrying on a war for
autocracy against Eevolution, freedom and justice. The
victory of Wilhelm will be death to democracy and freedom.
We withdraw from Biga, but we know that the forces of
the Eevolution will ultimately prove themselves more power-
ful than the force of cannons. We know that in the long
run your conscience will overcome everything, and that the
German soldiers, with the Russian Revolutionary Army,
will march to the victory of freedom. You are at present
stronger than we ate, but yours is only the victory of
brute force. The moral force is on our side. History
will tell that the German proletarians went against their
revolutionary brothers, and that they forgot international
working-class soHdari^. This crime yoti can expiate only
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JIMMIE HIGGINS ENTERS INTO DANGER 257
by one means. You must understand your own and at the
same time the universal interests, and strain all your
immense power against imperialism, and go hand in hand
with us — toward life and liberty !"
Jimmie looked up.
"Vat you tink of it?" cried Kalenkin, eagerly.
"Fine!" cried Jimmie. "The very thing they need! No-
body can object to that. It's a fact, if s what the Bolsheviki
are doing."
The other smiled grimly. "Tovarish, if dey find you vit
dat paper, dey shoot you like a dog! Dey shoot us aU!"
"But why?"
"Because it is Bolshevik."
Jimmie wanted to say. But it's true ! However, he realised
how naive that would sound. So he waited, while Kalenkin
went on :
"You show it only to men you can trust. You hide de
copies, you take vun and make it dirty, so you say, I find it in
de street. See, iss it so de Bolsheviki fight de Kaiser? If it
is8 so, vy do ve need to fight dem? So you give dese; and some
day I come vit someting new."
Jimmie agreed that that was the way to set about it. He
folded up a score of the leaflets and stowed them in an inside
pocket of his jacket, and put on his heavy overcoat and gloves,
which he wished he could give to the sick, half -starved and half-
frozen Bolshevik. He patted him reassuringly on the back, and
said : "You trust me, comrade ; I'll hand them out, and they'll
bring results too, I'll bet."
"You don't tell about me !" exclaimed Kalenkin with fierce
intensity.
To which Jimmie answered, "Not if they boil me alive I"
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL
JIMMIEwent to supper in the mess-hall; but the piles of
*' steaming hot food choked him — ^he was thinking of the half-
starved little Jew. The thirty pieces of silver in the pocket of
his army jacket burned each a separate hole. Like the Judas
of old, he wanted to hang himself, and he took a quick method
of doing it.
Kext to him at the table sat a motor-cyclist who had been a
union plumber before the war, and had agreed with Jimmie
that workingmen were going to get their jobs back or would
make the politicians sweat for it. Ou' the way out from the
meal, Jimmie edged this fellow off and remarked, "Say, I've
got somethin' interestin'."
Kow interesting things were rare here under the Arctic
Circle. "What's that?" asked the plumber.
"I was walkin' on the street," said Jimmie, "an' I seen a
printed paper in the gutter. It's a copy of the proclamation
the Bolsheviki have made to the German soldiers, an' that
they're givin' out in the German trenches."
"By heck I" said the plumber. "Whaf s in it ?"
"Why, it calls on them to rise against the Kaiser — ^to do what
the Russians have done."
"Can you read German ?" a^ked the other.
"Naw," said Jimmie. "This is in English."
"But whafs it doin' in English?"
"I'm sure I dunno."
"What's it doin' in Archangel?"
"Dunno that either."
"Holy Christ!" cried the plumber. "I bet them fellers are
trying their stunts on us !"
258
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL 259
"I hadn't thought of that," said Jimmie, subtly. "Maybe
if 8 so."
"They won't get very far with the Yanks, I bet," predicted
the other.
"No, I suppose not. But anyhow, it's interesting, what they
say."
"Lemme see it," said the plumber.
"But say," said Jimmie, "don't you tell nobody. I don't
want to get into trouble."
"Mum's the word, old man." And the plumber took the
3irty scrap of paper and read. "By Godl" said he. "That's
kind o' funny."
"How do you mean ?"
"Why, that don't sound like them fellers were backing the
Kaiser, does it?" And the plumber scratched his head. "Say,
that sounds aU right to me !"
"Me too !" said Jimmie. "Didn't know they had that much
sense."
"If s just what the German people ought to have, by God,"
said the plumber. "Seems to me we ought to hire fellows to
give out things like that."
"I think so too," said Jimmie, enraptured.
The plumber reflected again. "I suppose," said he, "the
trouble is they wouldn't give it to the Germans only; they'd want
to give it to both sides."
"Exactly !" said Jimmie, enraptured still more.
"And of course that wouldn't do," said the plumber; "that
Hrould interfere with discipline." So Jimmie's hopes were
dashed.
But the upshot of the interview was that the plumber said
he would like to keep the paper and show it to a couple of other
fellows. He promised again that he wouldn't mention Jimmie,
30 Jimmie said all right, and went his way, feeling that one seed
was lodged in good soil.
II
The "Y" had come to Archangel, along with the rest of
the expedition, and had set up a hut, in which the men played
checkers and read, and bought chocolate and cigarettes at prices
which they considered too high. Jimmie strolled in, and there
was a doughboy with whom he had had some chat on the trans-
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260 JIMMIE HIGGINS
port. This doughboy h&i been a printer at hotae^ and h6 had
agi^eed with Jimmie that maybe a whole lot of politiciatfis and
newspaper editors didn't really undetstand President Wilson's
radical thought, and so far as they did understand it, hated and
feared it< TMs priBter was reading one of the popular maga-
zines, full of the intellectual pap which a syndicate of big bank-
ers considered safe for the common people. He looked bored, so
Jimmie strolled up and lured him away, and repeated bis play-
acting as with the plumper — and with the same resulti
Then he strolled in to see one of the picture-shows which had
been brou^t along to beguilB the lofig arctic nights for the
expedition. The picture showed a million-doHar-a-yeatt' gifl
doll-baby in her habitual T61e, a poor little child-waif dressed in
the newest fashion and with a row of ringlets just out of a band-
box, sharing, those terrible fates which the poor take as an
eVery-day affair, and being rewarded at the end by the love of
a rich and noble and devoted youth who solves the social pfob-
lem by setting her up in a palace. This also had met with the
approvt^ of a syndicate of bankers before it reached the common
people; and in the very midst of it, while the child-waif With
the ringlets was being shown in a "dose-up" with large drops
of water running down her cheeks, the doughboy in the seat
next to Jimmie remarkedy "Aw, hell! Why do they keep oU
giving us this bunk?"
So Jimmie suggested that they "cut it/' and they went out,
and Jimmie played his little game a third time, attid agaia was
asked to leave the leafst he had picked out of the gutter.
So on for two days, until Jimmie had got rid of the last
of the manifestoes which Kalenkin had entrusted to him. And
on the evening of the last day, as the subtle propagandist was
about to turn into his bunk for the nighty there suddenly ap-
pea^red a sergeant with a file of half a dozen men aad announced,
"fiiggins, you are under arrest,"
Jimmie stared at him, "What for ?*
"Orders— that's all I know."
"Well, wait " began Jimmie; but the other said there
Was BO wait about it, and he took Jiraonie by the arm, and one
of th* other men took him by the other Arni, and xtiarched him
. away< A third man slung Jimmie'a kit-bag onto hiis shouMei',
wkH^r the rest begian to seatrch the pkce, ripping open the mat-
tress and looking for loose boards in the £ot>r.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL 261
in
It didn't take Ji^mie very Jong to figure out the situation.
By the time he had come into the presence of Lieutenant Gannet,
le had made up his mind what had happened, and what he
irould do about it.
The lieutenant sat at a table, erect and stiff, with a tejrible
Frown behind his glasses. He had his sword on the table and
ilso his automatic — as if he intended to execute Jimmie^ and
dad only to decide which method to nse.
**Higgin8," he thimdered, "where did you get that leaflet?"
"I found it in the gutter."
"You lie !" said the lieutenant.
"No, sir," said Jimmie.
"How many did you find?"
Jimmie had imagiijed this emergency, *nd decided to play
safe. "Three, sir," said he ; and added, "I think."
"You lief thundered the lieutenant again.
"No, sir," said Jim.mie, meekly.
"Whom did you give them to?"
Jimmie hadn't thought of that question. It stumped him.
"I — I'd rather not say," said he.
"I command you to say," said the lieutenant.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I couldn't."
"You'll have to say before you ^et through," said the other.
"You might as well nnderstand that now. You say you found
three?"
It might have been four," said Jimmie, playii^ still safer.
"I didn't pay any particidar attention to them."
"You sympathise with these doctrines/' said the lieutenant.
"Do you deny it?"
"Why, no, sir— not exactty. I sympathise with part of
them."
"And you found these leaflets in the gwtter, and you didn't
take the trouble to covnt whether there were tJiree or f oiir ?"
"No, sir."
"There couldn't have been five?"
"I don't know, sir— I don't think so."
"Certainly not six?"
"No, sir," said Jimmie, feeling quite safe now. I'm sure
there weren't six."
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262 JIMMIE HIGGINS
So the lieutenant opened a drawer in the table before him,
and took out a bunch of the leaflets, folded, wrinkled and dirt-
stained, and spread them before Jimmie's eyes, one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven. "You lie !" said the lieutenant.
"I was mistakien, sir," said Jimmie.
"Have you searched this man ?" the oflBcer demanded of the
other soldiers.
"Not yet, sir."
"Do it now."
They made certain that Jimmie had no weapons, and then
they made him strip to the skin. They searched everything,
even prying loose the soles of his boots; and of course one of
the first things they found was the red card in the inside jacket-
pocket. "Aha !" cried the lieutenant.
"That's a card of the Socialist party," said Jimmie.
"Don't you know that back home men who carry that card
are being sent to jail for twenty years ?"
"It ain't fer carryin' the card," said Jimmie, sturdily.
There was a pause, while Jimmie got his clothes on again.
"Now, Higgins," said the lieutenant, "yfiu have been caught
red-handed in treason against your country and its fiag. The
penalty is death. There is just one way you can escape — ^by
making a clean breast of everything. Do you understand ?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then tell me who gave you those leaflets ?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I found them in the gutter."
"You intend to stick to that silly tale ?"
"It's the truth, sir."
"You will protect your fellow-conspirators with your life?"
"I have told you all I know, sir."
"All right," said the lieutenant. He took a pair of hand-
cuffs from the drawer and saw them put on Jimmie. He picked
up his sword and his automatic — and Jimmie, who did not
understand military procedure, stared with fright. But the
lieutenant was merely intending to strap the weapons onto his
belt; then he got into his overcoat and his big fur gloves and
his fur hat that covered everything but his eyes and nose, and
ordered Jimmie brought along. Outside an automobile was
waiting, and the officer and the prisoner and two guards rode
to the military jail.
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JIMMIB HI6GINS DISCOVBES HIS SOUL 263
IT
There was terror in the soul of the prisoner, but he did not
let anyone see it. And in the same way Lieutenant Gannet did
not let anyone see the perplexity that was in his soul. He was a
military officer, he had his stern m,ilitary duty to do, and he was
doing it ; but he had never put anybody in hand-cufEs before, and
had never taken anybody to jail before, and he was almost as
much upset about it as the prisoner.
The lieutenant had seen the terrible spectacle of Eussia col-
lapsing, falling into ruin and humiliation, because of what
seemed to him a propaganda of treason which had been carried
on in her armies; he realized that these "mad dogs" of Bol-
shevik! were deliberately conspiring to poison the other armies,
to bring the rest of the world into their condition. It seemed
to him monstrous that such efforts should be under way in the
American army. How far had the thing gone ? The lieutenant
did not know, and he was terrified, as men always are in the
presence of the unknown. It was his plain duty, to which he
had sworn himself, to stamp his heel upon the head of this snake ;
but still he was deeply troubled. This Sergeant Higgins had
been promoted for valor in France, and had been, in spite of his
reckless tongue, a pretty decent subordinate. And behold, here
he was, an active conspirator, a propagandist of sedition, a defi-
ant and insolent traitor!
They came to the jail, which had been constructed by the
Tsar for the purpose of holding down the people of the region.
It loomed, a gigantic stone bulk in the darkness ; and Jimmie,
who had preached in Local Leesville that America was worse
than Eussia, now learned that he had been mistaken — ^Eussia was
exactly the same.
They entered through a stone gateway, and a steel door
opened before them and clanged behind them. At a desk sat a
sergeant, and except that he was British, and that his uniform
was brown instead of blue, it might have been Leesville, U. S. A.
They took down Jimmie's name and address, and then Lieu-
tenant Gannet asked: "Has Perkins come yet?"
"Not yet, sir/' was the reply; but at that moment the front
door was opened, and there entered a big man, bundled in an
overcoat which made him even bigger. From the first moment,
Jimmie watched this man as a fascinated rabbit watches a snake.
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264 JIMMIE HIGGINS
The little Socialist had had so much to do with policemen and
detectives in his hunted life that he knew in a flash what he
was "up against."
This Perkins before the war had been an "operative" for a
private detective agency— what the workers contemptuously re-
ferred to as a "sleuth." The government, having found itself
in sudden need of much "sleuthing," had been forced to take
what help it could get, without too close scrutiny. So now
Perkins was a sergeant in the secret service ; and just as the car-
penters were hammering nails as at home, and the surgeons were
cutting flesh as at home, so Perkins was "sleuthing" as at home.
"Well, sergeant ?" said the lieutenant, "What have you got ?"
*'I think I've got the story, sir."
You could see the relief in Gannet's face ; and Jimmie's heart
went down into his boots.
"There's just one or two details I want to make sure about,"
continued Perkins. "I suppose you won't mind if I question
this prisoner?"
"Oh, not at all," said the other. He was relieved to be able
to turn this difficult matter over to a man of decision, a pro-
fessional man, who was used to such cases and knew how to
handle them.
"I'll report to you at once," said Perking.
"I'll wait," said the lieutenant.
And Perkins took Jimmie's trembling arm in a grip like
a vise, and marched him down a long stone corridor and down
a flight of steps. On the way he picked up two other men, also
in khaki, who followed him; the four passed through a series
of underground passages, and entered a stone cell with a solid
steel door, which they clanged behind them— a sound that was
like the knell of doom to poor Jimmie's terrified soul. And
instantly Sergeant Perkins seized him by the shoulder and
whirled him about, and glared into his eyes. "Now, you little
8on-of-a-bitch !" said he.
Having been a detective in an American city, this man was
familiar with the "third degree," whereby prisoners are led to
tell what they know, and many things which they don't haxfw,
but which tiey know the police want them to tell. Of the
other two men, one, Private ConnQr, had had this inquisition
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL 365
applied to him on more than one occasion. He was a burglar
with a prison-record ; but his last arrest had been ia a middle
Western town for taking part in a bar-room fight, and the judge
didn't happen to know his record, and accepted his tearful plea,
agreeing to suspend sentence provided the prisoner would enlist
to fight for his country.
The other man was named Grady, and had left a wife and
three children in a tenement in "Hell's Kitchen," New York, .
to come to fight the Kaiser. He was a kind-hearted and decent
Irishman, who had earned a hard living carrying bricks and
mortar up a ladder ten hours a day ; but he was absolutely con-
vinced that there existed, somewhere under his feet, a hell of
brimstone and sulphur in which he would roast forever if he
disobeyed the orders of those who were set in authority over him.
Grady knew that there were certain wicked men, hating and
slandering religion, and luring millions of souls into hell; they
were called Socialists, or Anarchists, and must obviously be
emissaries of Satan, so it was God's work to root them out and
destroy them. Thus the Gradys have reasoned for a thousand
years ; and thus in black dungeons underground they have turned
the thumb-screws and pulled the levers of the rack. They do it
still in many of the large cities of America, where superstition
runs the police-force, in combination with liquor interests and
public service corporations.
VI
"Now, you little son-of-a-bitch," said Perkins, "listen to me.
"I been lookin' into this business of yours, and I got the names
of most of them Bolsheviks you been dealing with. But I want
to know them all, and I'm going to know — see?"
In spite of all his terror, Jimmie's heart leaped with exulta-
tion. Perkins was lying! He hadn't found out a thing! He
was just trying to blufE his prisoner, and to make his superior
officer think he was a real "sleuth". He was doing what the
police everywhere do — trying to obtain by brutality what they
cannot obtain by skill and intelligence.
"Now, you're goin' to tell," continued the man. "You may
think you can hold out, but you'll find if s no go. I'll tear you
limb from limb if you make me — I'll do just whatever I have
to do to make you come through. You get me?"
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266 JIMMIB HIGGINS
Jimmie nodded his head in a sort of spasm, but his effort
to make a sound resulted only in a gulp in his throat.
"You'll only make yourself a lot of pain if you delay, so
you'd better be sensible. Now — who are they?"
"T?hey ain't anybody. They "
"So that's it? Well, we'll see." And the setgeant swung ;
Jimmie about, so as to be at his back. "Hold him," he said,
to the two men, and they grasped the prisoner's shoulders; the
sergeant grasped his two wrists, which were handcuffed together, i
and began to force them up Jimmie's back.
«0w!" cried Jimmie. "Stop! Stop!"
"Will you tell ?" said the sergeant.
"Stop!"/ cried Jimmie, wildly; and as the other pushed
harder, he began to scream. "You'll break my arm! The one
that was wounded."
"Wounded ?" said the sergeant.
"It was broken by a bullet !"
"The hell you say !" said the sergeant.
"It's true — ask anybody! The battle of Chatly Terry in
France !"
For just a moment the pressure on Jimmie's arms weak-
ened ; but then the sergeant remembered that military men who
have A career to make do not go to their superior officers with
sentimentalities. "If you were wounded in battle," said the
sergeant, "what you turnin' traitor for ? Give me the names I
want !" And he began to push again.
It was the most horrible agony that Jimmie had ever
dreamed of. His voice rose to a shriek: "Wait! Wait!
Listen !" The torturer would relax the pressure and say : "The .
names ?" And when Jimmie did not give the names, he would
press harder yet. Jimmie writhed convulsively, but the other
two men held him as in a vise. He pleaded, he sobbed and
moaned; but the walls of this dungeon had been made so that
the owners of property outside would not be troubled by knowing;
what was being done in their interest.
We go into museums and look at devilish instruments which
men once employed for the torment of their fellows, and w&
shudder and congratulate ourselves that we live in more humane
days; quite overlooking the fact that it does not need elaborate^
instruments to inflict pain on the human body. Any man can
do it to another, if he has him helpless. The thing that i&-
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL 267
needed is the motive — ^that is to say, some form of privilege
established by law, and protecting itself against rebellion.
"Tell me the names !" said the sergeant. He had Jimmie's
two hands forced up the back of his neck, and was lying over on
Jimmie, pushing, pushing. Jimmie was blinded with the pain,
his whole being convulsed. It was too horrible, it could not be !
Anything, anything to stop it! A voice shrieked in his soul:
"Tell! TeU!" But then he thought of the little Jew, pitiful,
trusting — no, no, he would not tell! He would never tell!
But then what was he to do? Endure this horror? He could
not endure it — ^it was monstrous !
He would writhe and scream, babble and plead and sob.
Perhaps there have been men who have endured torture with
dignity, but Jimmie was not one of these. Jimmie was abject,
Jimmie was frantic ; he did anything, everything he could think
of — save one thing, the thing that Perkins kept telling him to do.
This went on until the sergeant was out of breath : that being
one disadvantage of the primitive hand-processes of torture to
which American police-officials have been reduced by political
sentimentalism. The torturer lost his temper, and began to
shake and twist at Jimmie's arms, so that Connor had to warn
him — ^he didn't want to break anything, of course.
So Perkins said, "Put his head down." They bent Jimmie
over till his head was on the ground, and Grady tied Jimmie's
legs to keep them quiet, and Connor held his neck fast, and
Perkins put his foot on the handcuffs and pressed down. By
this means he could continue the torture while standing erect
and breathing freely, a great relief to him. "Now, damn you !"
said he. "I can stay here all night. Come through I"
VII
Jimmie thought that each moment of pain was the worst.
He had never had any idea that pain could endure so long, could
burn with such a white and searing flame. He ground his teeth
together, he chewed his tongue through, he ground his face upon
the stones. Anything for a respite — even a new kind of pain,
that he might forget the screaming ache in his shoulders and
elbows and wrists. But there was no respite; his spirit was
whirled and beaten about in bottomless abysses, and from their
depths he heard the voice of Perkins, as from a far-off mountain
18
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268 JIMMIB HIGGINS
top: ^'Come through! Come through — or you'll stay like this
all night I"
But Jimmie did not stay like that; for Perkins got tired
of standing on one foot, and he knew that the Lieutenant was
pacing about upstairs, wondering why it took so long to ask a
few questions. Jimmie heard the voice from the far-oflE moun-
tain-top : "This won't do ; we'll have to string him up for a bit."
And he took from his pocket a strong cord, and tied one end
about Jimmie's two thumbs, and ran the other end over an iron
ring in the wall of the dungeon — put there by some agent of the
Tsar for use in the cause of democracy. The other two men
lifted Jimmie till his feet were off the ground, and then made
fast the cord, and Jimmie hung with his full weight from his
thimibs, still handcuffed behind his back.
So now he was no trouble to the three jailors — except that
he was an ugly-looking .object, with his face purple and con-
vulsed, and his bloody tongue being chewed up. They turned
him about, ivith his face against the stones, and then they had
nothing but the sounds of him, which had become feebler, but
were none the less disagreeable, a babbling and gabbling, con-
tinuous and yet unrhythmic, as if made by a whole menagerie of
tormented animals.
Still the minutes passed, and Perkins' irritation grew. He
wouldn't have minded for himself, for his nerves were strong,
he had handled a good many of the I. W. W. in the old days
back home; but he had promised to get the information, and so
his reputation was at stake. He would prod Jimmie and say:
"Will you tell?" And when Jimmie still refused, finally he
said, "We'll have to try the water-cure. Connor, get me a
couple of pitchers of water and a good sized funnel."
"Yes, sir," said the ex-burglar, and went out ; and meantime
Perkins addressed his victim again. "Listen, you little hell-
pup," said he. "I'm going to do something new, y something
that'll break you sure. I been with the army in the Philip-
pines, and seen it worked there many's the time, and I never
yet seen anybody that could stand it. We're going to fill you
up with water ; and we'll leave you to soak for a couple of hours,
and then we'll put in some more, and we'll keep that up day
and night till you come through. Now, you better think it
over and speak quick, before we get the water in, because it
ain't so easy to get out." <
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL 269
Jimmie lay with his face against the wall, and the agony
of his tortured thumbs was like knives twisted into him; he
listened to these threats, and heard again the cry in his soul
for respite at any hazard.
Jimmie was fighting a battle, the sternest ever fought by
man — the battle of conscience against the weakness of the flesh.
To tell or not to tell? The poor tormented body shrieked.
Tell ! But conscience, in a feeble voice, gasped, over and over and
over. No ! No ! No ! It had to keep on insisting, because the bat-
tle was never over, never won. Each moment was a new agony,
and therefore a fresh temptation; each argument had to be re-
peated without end. Why should he not tell? Because Kalen-
kin had trusted him, and Kalenkin was a comrade. But maybe
Kalenkin was gone now, maybe he had died of one of his cough-
ing spells, maybe he had heard of Jimmie's arrest and made
his escape. Maybe they would not torture Kalenkin as they
had Jimmie, because he was not a soldier; they might just put
him in jail and keep him there, and others would do the work.
Maybe
And so on. But the feeble voice whispered in the soul of
Jimmie Higgins : You are the revolution. You are social jus-
tice, struggling for life in this world. You are humanity,
setting its face to the light, striving to reach a new goal, to
put behind it an old horror. You are Jesus on the cross; and
if you fail, the world goes back, perhaps forever. You must
hold out ! You must bear this ! And this ! And this ! You
must bear everything — forever — as long as needs be ! You must
not "come through" !
VIII
Connor came back with his pitchers of water and his funnel.
They took Jimmie dovm — oh, the blessed relief to his thumbs ! —
and laid him on the ground, with his racked and swollen hands
still handcuffed under him; and Grady sat on his feet, and
Connor sat on his chest, and Perkins forced the funnel down
his throat and poured in the water.
Jimmie had to swallow, of course; he had to gulp desper-
ately, to keep from being choked; and pretty soon the water
fiUed him up, and then began the most fearful agony he had
yet endured. It was like the pain of the ether-gas, only in-
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270 JIMMIE HIGGINS
finitely worse. He was blown out like a balloon; his insides
were about to burst; his whole body was one sore bojl — and
Connor, sitting on his stomach, sat a little harder now and
then, to make sure the water got jostled into place. Jimmie
could not scream, but his face turned purple and the cords stood
out on his forehead and neck; he began to strangle, and this
was worst of all; every convulsion of his body stabbed him with
ten thousand knives.
Jimmie had talked with a number of the "wobblies" who
had this "water-cure," a regular device of police-authorities in
small towns and villages. !t is simple and cheap and cleanly;
it leaves no blood and no bruises to be exhibited in court;
it muzzles the victim, so that his screams cannot be heard
through jail-windows — therefore a simple denial covers it com-
pletely. "Wild Bill" had had this treatment, "Strawberry"
Curran had had it several times. But oh, thought Jimmie, it
could not be like this — ^no human being had ever endured any-
thing like this ! Poor Jimmie was not learned in history, and
did not realise that men have endured everything that other
men can inflict. They will continue to endure it, so long as
privilege is written in the law, and allowed to use the law in its
unholy cause.
So the battle of the ages went on in the soul of Jimmie
Higgins. He was a little runt of a Socialist machinist, with
bad teeth and gnarled hands, and he could do nothing sublime
or inspiring, nothing even dignified; in fact, it would be hard
for any one to do anything dignified, when he lies on the floor
with a gallon or two of water in him, and one man sitting on
his legs and another on his stomach, and another jamming a
funnel into his mouth. All Jimmie could do was to fight the
fearful fight in the deeps of him, and not lose it. "Lift your
knee if you are ready to tell," Perkins would say; and Grady
would raise up, so that Jimmie could lift his knee if he wanted
to; but Jimmie's knee did not lift.
Far down in the deeps of Jimmie Higgins' tormented soul,
something strange was happening. Lying there bound and help-
less, despairing, writhing with agony, half insane with the ter-
ror of it, Jimmie called for help— and help came to him; that
help which penetrates all dungeon walls, and cheats all jailors
and torturers; that Power which breaks all bars of steel and
bars of fear —
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JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVEES HIS SOTJL 271
"Thou has great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind!"
In the soul of Jimmie Higgins was heard that Voice which
speaks above the menaces and commands of tyranny; which
says : I am Man, and I prevail. I conquer the flesh, I trample
upon the body and rise above it. I defy its imprisonments, its
prudences and fears. I am Truth, and will be heard in the
world. I am Justice, and will be done in the world. I am
Freedom, and I break all laws, I defy all repressions, I exult, I
proclaim deliverance ! — And because, in every age and in every
clime, this holy Power had dwelt in the soul of man, because
this mystic Voice has spoken there, humanity has moved out
of darkness and savagery, into at least the dream of a decent
and happy world.
So Jimmie lay, converting his pain into ecstasy, a dizzy and
perilous rapture, close to the border-line of madness; and Ser-
geant Perkins arose and looked down on him and shook his
head. "By God!" said he. "What's in that little hell-pup?"
He gave Jimmie a kick in the ribs; and Jimmie's soul took a
leap, and went whirling through eternities of anguish.
"By Jesus, I'll make you talk !" cried Perkins, and he began
to kick with his heavy boots — until Connor stopped him, know-
ing that this was not ethical — it would leave marks.
So finally the sergeant said abruptly, "Wait here." And he
went upstairs to where Gannet was pacing about.
"Lieutenant," he said, "that fellow's a stubborn case."
"What does he say?"
"I can't get a word out of him. He's a Socialist and a
crank, you know, and you'd be surprised how ugly some of them
fellows can be. As soon as I get the story complete I'll report to
you, but meantime there's no use your waiting here."
So the officer went away, and Perkins went back to the
dungeon and gave orders that every two hours some one should
come and fill Jinmiie up witfi water, and give him another
chance to say "Yes." And Jimmie lay and moaned and wept,
all by himself, quivering now and then with the perilous ecstasy,
which does not last, but has to be renewed by continuous, efforts
of the will, as a tired horse has to be driven with spur and
whip. Never, never could this battle be truly won! Never
could the body be wholly forgotten, its clamorous demands
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272 JIMMIE HIGGINS
wholly stilled ! God comes, but doubt follows closely. What is
the use of this fearful sacrifice ? What good will it accomplish,
who will "know about it, who will care ? Thus Satan in the
soul, and thus the eternal duel between the new thing that man
dreams, and the old thing that he has made into law.
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CHAPTEE XXVII
JIUMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOE DEMOCRACY
A KOTHBE day had come — though Jimmie did not know it in
^^ his dungeon. All he knew was that Sergeant Perkins re-
turned, and stood looking at him, picking his teeth with a
quill. This little Bolshevik had stood the water-cure longer
than any man whom Perkins had ever known, and he won-
dered vaguely what sort of damned fool he was, what he thought
he was accomplishing, anyhow.
But it was necessary to keep after him, for Perkins knew
that his career was at stake. He was supposed to have found
out something, and he hadn't! So he ordered Jimmie tied up
by the thumbs, the poor thumbs that were swollen to three times
their normal size, and nearly black in colour. But now Jimmie's
good Mother Nature interfered to stop the proceedings; the pain
was so exquisite that Jimmie fainted, and when the sergeant
saw that he was being cheated, he cut his victim down and left
him lying on the damp stones.
So for three days Jimmie's life consisted of alternating
swoons and agony — ^the regular routine of the "third degree"
in the more obstiiiate cases; and always, in his conscious mo-
ments, Jimmie called upon the God in himself, and the God
responded with his hosts, and trumpets of triumph echoed in
Jimmie's soul,-and he did not "come through."
So on the fourth day the three torturers entered the cell,
and lifted him to his feet, and carried him up the stone stairs,
and wrapped him in a blanket and put him in an automobile.
"Listen now," said Perkins, who sat by his side, "they're
going to try you by court-martial. Hear me?"
Jimmie made no response.
"And I'll explain this for your health — if you tell any lies
273
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274 JIMMIE HIG6INS
about what we done to you, I'll take you back to that dungeon
and tear you limb from limb. You get me?"
Still Jimmie did not answer — the sullen little devil, thought
Perkins. But in Jimmie's soul there was a faint flicker of hope.
Might he not make appeal to the higher authorities, and be
saved from further torture ? Jimmie had believed in his coun-
try, and in his country's purpose to defend democracy; he had
read the wonderful speeches of President Wilson, and could not
bring himself to think that the President would permit any man
to be tortured in prison. But alas, it was a long way from
the White House to Archangel — and still longer if you measured
it through the ramifications of the army machine, a route more
thoroughly crisscrossed with red tape than any sector of the
Hindenburg line with barbed wire.
Jimmie was taken into a room where seven officers sat at a
big table, looking very stern and solemn. Perkins supported
him under the arm-pits, thus making it look as if he were walk-
ing. He was placed in a chair, and took a glance about — ^but
without seeing much hope in the faces which confronted him.
The president of the court-martial was Major Gaddis, who
had been a professor of economics in a great university before
the war : that is to say, he had been selected by a syndicate of
bankers as a man who believed in a ruling class, and could
never by any possibility be brought to believe in anything else.
He was a man of strict honour, a very gracious and cultivated
gentleman if you happened to belong in his social circle; but
he was convinced that the duty of the lower classes was to
obey, and that the existence of civilised society depended upon
their being made to obey.
Next to him sat Colonel Xye, as different a type as could
be imagined. Nye had been a soldier of fortune in Mexico and
Central America, and had found prosperity as a captain of
one of those condottieri bands which were organised by the big
corporations of America before the war, for the purpose of
crushing strikes. He had commanded a private army of five
thousand men, horse, foot and artillery, known to the public as
the Smithers Detective Agency. During a great coal-strike he
had been placed by a state government in virtual charge of the
militia, and had occupied himself in turning loose machine-guns
on tent-colonies filled with women and children. He had been
tried by a militia court-martial fofr murder and acquitted — ^thos
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JIMMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOE DEMOCRACY 275
making it impossible for any civilian grand-jury ever to indict
him and have him hanged. And now he had been automatically
taken from the state militia into the national army, where he
made a most e£5cient officer, with a reputation as a strict disci-
plinarian.
First Lieutenant Olsen had been a drygoods clerk, who had
gone into an officer's training camp. As he hoped to rise in
the world, he looked to his superiors always before he expressed
an opinion. The same was true of Captain Gushing, who was
a good-natured young bank-cashier with a pretty wife who spent
his salary a couple of months before he got it. The fifth officer,
Lieutenant Gannet, did most of the talking, because he was
Jimmie's immediate superior, and had conducted the investi-
gations into the case. He had discussed the matter with Major
Prentice, the Judge-Advocate of the court, also with Captain
Ardner, the young military lawyer who went through the form
of defending Jimmie; the three had agreed that the case was
a most serious one. The propagandia of Bolshevism in this Arch-
angel expedition must certainly be nipped in the bud. The
charge against Jimmie was insubordination and incitement to
mutiny, and the penalty was death.
II
Jimmie sat in his chair, only partly aware of what was
going on, because of the agony in his swollen thumbs and his
twisted arms. His flicker of hope had died, and he had lost
interest in the proceedings — all his energy was needed to endure
his pain. He would not teU them where he had got the leaflets,
and when they badgered him, he just grunted with pain. He
would not talk with Captain Ardner, who tried in vain to per-
suade him that he was acting in his — ^the prisoner's — ^interest.
Only twice did Jimmie flare up ; the first time when Major Gad-
dis voiced his indignation that any citizen of the great American
democracy should ally himself with these Bolshevik vermin, who
were carrying on a reign of terror throughout Bussia, burning,
slaying, torturing
"Who talks about torturing?" shrieked Jimmie, half start-
ing from his chair. "Ain't you been torturin' me— regular tear-
in' me to pieces?"
The court was shocked. "Torturing P* said Captain Gushing.
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276 JIMMIB HIGGINS
"Torturin* me for days — ^a week, maybe, I duimo, in that
there dungeon !"
Major Gaddis turned to Sergeant Perkins, who stood behind
Jimmie's chair, barely able to withhold his hands from the
prisoner. "How about that, sergeant?"
"It is utterly false, sir."
"Look at these thumbs I" cried Jimmie. "They strung me
up by them !"
"The prisoner was violent," said Perkins. "He nearly killed
Private Connor, one of the guards, so we had to use severe
measures."
"It's a lie !" shrieked Jimmie. But they shut him up, and
the dignified military machine ground on. Anybody could see
that discipline would go to pieces if the word of a jailer did not
prevail over that of a prisoner, the word of a loyal and tried
subordinate over that of a traitor and conspirator, an avowed
sympathiser with the enemy.
Presently the presiding ofiBcer inquired if the prisoner was
aware that he had incurred the death-penalty. Getting no reply,
he went on to inform the prisoner that the court would be apt
to inflict this extreme penalty, unless he would reconsider and
name his accomplices among the Bolsheviki, so that the army
could protect itself against the propaganda of these murderers.
So Jimmie flared up again — but not so violently, rather with a
touch of fierce irony. "Murderers, you say? Ain't you gettin'
ready to murder me?"
"We are enforcing the law," said the court.
"You make what you call law, an' they make what they call
law. You kill people that disobey, an' so do they, Whaf s the
difference ?"
"They are killing all the educated and law-abiding people in
Russia," declared Major Gaddis, severely.
"All the rich people, you mean," said Jimmie. "They make
the rich obey their laws; they give them a chance, the same as
everybody else, then if they don't obey they kill them — ^just as
many as they have to kill to make them obey. An' don't you
do the same with the poor people? Ain't I seen you do it,
every time there was a strike ? Ask Colonel Nye there ! Didn't
he say: *To hell with habeas corpus — we'll give them post-
mortems' ?"
Colonel Nye flushed; he did not know that his fame had
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JIMMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOR DEMOCRACY 277
followed him aU the way from Colorado to the Arctic Circle.
The court made haste to protect him: "We are not conducting
a Socialist debate here. It is evident that the prisoner is im-
penitent and defiant, and that there is no reason for leniency."
So the court proceeded to find Jimmie Higgins guilty as
charged, and to sentence him to twenty years' military confine-
ment— really quite a mild sentence, considering the circum-
stances. In New York city at this very time they were trying
fiye Russian Jews, all of them mere children, one a girl, for
exactly the same offence as Jimmie had coiomitted — distributing
a plea that American troops should cease to kill Russian Social-
ists ; these children received twenty years, and one of them died
soon after his arrest — ^his fellows swore as a result of torture
inflicted by Federal secret service agents.
lU
So Jimmie was taken back to prison. Major Gaddis, who
was really a just man, and made law and order his religion, gave
the strictest orders that the prisoner should not again be himg up
by the thumbs. It was of course desirable to find out who had
printed the Bolshevik leaflets, but in the effort to make the
prisoner tell he should receive only the ptmishments formally
approved by the army authorities.
So Jimmie went back to the underground dungeon, and
for eight hours every day a chain was fastened about his wrists,
and the other end run up into the iron ring, so that his feet
barely touched the floor ; and there Jimmie hung, and tried out
his conscience — ^this being the test then being undergone by
many men at the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
Jimmie's conscience really was nothing like as strong as it ought
to have been. Jimmie had moods of shameless seU-pity, moods
of desperate and agonising doubt. He did not mean to let his
dungeon-keepers know this, but they listened behind the door
through a slot which the Tsar had had contrived for that pur-
pose; it could' be closed while the prisoner wks screaming imder
torture, and then opened by the jailer without the prisoner's
knowledge.
So Perkins heard Jimmie sobbing and wailing, talking to
himself and to other people — ^to some one called "Strawberry,"
and to some one else called "Wild Bill," asking them if they
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278 JIMMIE HIGGINS
had ever suffered anything like this, and was it really worth
while, would it help the revolution? Perkins thought he had
got some important information here, and took it to Lieutenant
Gannet, with the result that inquiry was made through all the
American forces for men known as "Strawberry" and "Wild
Bill." But these men could not be found; as it happened,
"Wild Bill" had taken refuge in a place to which not even the
army intelligence service can penetrate, and "Strawberry" Cur-
ran was just then being tried with a bunch of other "wobblies"
in California and subjected to much the same kind of treatment
as Jimmie was receiving in Archangel.
It was a big advantage that Sergeant Perkins had in his
struggle with Jimmie, that the pitiful weakness of Jimmie's
soul was exposed to him, while the soul of Perkins was hidden
from Jimmie. For the truth was that Perkins was suffer-
ing from rage, mingled with not a little fear. What the hell
was this idea that could keep a little runt of a workingman
stronger than all in authority? And how was this idea to be
kept from spreading and wrecking the comfortable, well-ordered
world in which Perkins expected soon to receive an army com-
mission ? The very day after the court-martial, which was sup-
posed to be a profound military secret, the army authorities were
astounded to discover, posted in several conspicuous places, a
placard in English, reading:
"American soldiers, do you know that an army sergeant is
being tortured and has been sentenced to twenty years in a
dungeon for having tried to tell you how the Bolsheviki are
making propaganda against the German Kaiser?
"Do you know the true reason your armies are here? Are
you willing to die to compel the Eussian people to accept your
ideas of government? Are you willing to have your comrades
tortured to keep the facts from you?"
And of course the doughboys who read this placard wanted
to know if it told the truth. And quickly word spread that it
did. Men who still had copies of the leaflet which Jimmie had
distributed now found eager readers for it, and soon all the
men knew its contents, and were debating the question of the
use of American armies to put down social revolution in a for-
eign country. These same questions were being asked in the
halls oi Congress back home. Senators were questioning the
right of sending troops into a country against which war had
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JIMMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOR DEMOCRACY 279
"e^er been declared, and other Senators were demanding that
they be immediately withdrawn. And this news also reached
the men, and increased the danger. Archangel was not a pleas-
ant place to stay, especially with winter coming on fast; men
were disposed to grumble— and now they had a pretext !
IV
The authorities who were handling this army laboured under
one grievous handicap, probably never before faced by any
army in history. The commander-in-chief of the army, who
determined its policies and tried to set its moral tone, kept com-
ing now and then before Congress and making speeches full of
incendiary and reckless utterances, calculated to set dangerous
thoughts to buz2!ing in the heads of soldiers, to break down
discipline and undermine morale. The President wrote a letter
to a political convention in which he declared that the workers
of America were living in "economic serfdom"; he declared
again and again that every people had a right to determine
their own destinies and form of government without outside in-
terference. This while the army was trying to put down those
Russians who were in revolt against "economic serfdom" in
their own country!
An army, you see, is a machine built to fight; a man who
goes into it and takes part in its work, very quickly acquires
its tone, which is one of abysmal contempt for all politicians,
particularly of the talking and letter-writing variety, the "ideal-
ists" and "dreamers" and "theorists," who do not understand
that the business of men is to fight battles and win them. All
the ofiicers of the old army, the West Pointers, had been bred
in the tradition of class-rule, they had in their very bones the
idea that they were a special breed, that obedience to them was
a law of Grod; while of the new ofiBcers, the overwhelming
majority came from the well-to-do, and were not favourable to
speech-making and letter-writing about the rights of man.
They were without enthusiasm for the idea of having a pacifist
secretary of war set over them by the "idealist" commander-in-
chief. They did not hesitate to vent their indignation ; and when
this pacifist secretary gave orders about conscientious objectors
which were based upon sentimentalism and theory, the army
machine took the liberty of interpreting these orders and trim-
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280 JIMMIE HIGGINS
ming the nonsense out of them. And the farther away you
got from the office of the pacifist secretary, the more thorough
the trimming inevitably became; thus producing the phenom-
enon which poor Jimmie Higgins found so bewildering — ^that pol-
icies laid down by sincere humanitarians and liberals in Wash-
ington were carried out in Archangel by an ex-detective trained
in a school of corruption and cruelty.
Jimmie Higgins couldn't understand that herein Arch-
angel were Americans, taking their orders from British and
French officers, who wasted no breath on pacifism and senti-
ment, who had no fool ideals about wars for democracy. Was
one obscure little runt of a Socialist machinist to be allowed to
block their world-plans? Setting himself up as an authority,
presuming to accept literally the messages of his President, in
defiance of their authority in Archangel ! Allying himself with
traitorous and criminal scoundrels, trying to poison the minds
of American soldiers and light the flame of mutiny among them !
Just as once Jimmie Higgins had found himself in a strategic
position where he had held up the whole Hun army and won
the battle of Chateau-Thierry, so now he found himself in a
position of equal strategic importance — on the line of com-
jnu'nication of the Allied armies attacking Bussia, and threaten-
ing to cut the line and force the armies into retreat 1
It became more essential than ever to discover these Bolshevik
sympathisers and stamp out their propaganda. As hanging
Jimmie up by the wrists had not brought forth the desired
information, Jimmie was put in solitary confinement on a diet
•of bread and water, this being another test of sincerity of con-
science. For the conscience a diet of white flour and water may
be all right, but Jimmie soon found that it is very bad indeed
for the intestinal tract and the blood-stream — ^being, in truth,
far worse than a diet of water alone. The man who lives on
white flour and water for a few days suffers either from com-
plete stopping of the bowels, or else from dysentery; his blood
becomes clogged with starch poisons, his nerves degenerate, he
falls a quick victim to tuberculosis, or pernicious anaemia, or
some other disease which will prevent his ever being a soimd man
Again.
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JIMMIE HIGGINS VOTES FOR DEMOCRACY 281
Also, Jimmie received the water-treatment, as included in
the Fort Leavenworth regimen. It was necessary that all
prisoners should be bathed; which was interpreted by some
guards to mean that they should have a stream of icy water
turned on them, and be forced to stand under it. Because Jim-
mie's arms were too badly injured for him to scrub himself,
Connor seized a rough brush and salt, and rubbed o£E strips of
his skin. When Jimmie wriggled away, they followed him with
the hose; when he screamed, they turned it into his mouth and
nose; when he fell down, they let the cold water run over him
for ten or fifteen minutes.
Jimmie had had a good deal of harsh treatment in the
course of his outcast life, but never so closely concentrated in
point of time. His spirit remained unbroken, but his body gave
way, and then his mind began to give also. He fell victim to
delusions; the nightmares which haunted his sleep lay siege
to his waking hours also, and he thought he was being tortured
at times when he was just hanging by his chains. Until at
last Perkins, listening through the door, heard strange cries
and grunts, beast-like noises, barkings and growlings. He
called Connor and Grady, and the three of them stood listening.
"By God!" said Grady. "He's dippy."
"He's nutty," said Connor.
"He's batty," said Perkins.
But the idea occurred to all of them — perhaps he was sham-
ming! What was easier than for one of those emissaries of
Satan to pretend to have a devil inside him? So they waited
a bit longer; until Connor, coming to chain Jimmie up, found
him gnawing off the ends of his fingers. That was really seri-
ous, so they sent for the prison-surgeon, who had to make but
a brief inspection to convince himself that Jimmie Higgins was
a raving madman. Jimmie fancied himself some kind of fur-
bearing animal, and he was in a trap, and was trying to gnaw off
his foot so as to escape. He snapped his teeth at every one who
came near him; he had to be knocked senseless before a strait-
jacket could be got on him.
VI
And 60 it was that Jimmie Higgins at last made his escape
from his tormentors. Jimmie doesn't know anything about the
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282 JIMMIE HIGGINS
Kussian Jew, Kalenkin, any more; he could not tell the secret
if he wanted to, so they have given np testing his conscience,
and they treat him kindly, and have succeeded- in persuading
him that he is out of the trap. Therefore he is a good beast —
he crawls about on all-fours, and eats his food out of a tin
platter without using his gnawed-ofE fingers. He still has tor-
turing pains in the arm-joints, but he does not mind them so
much, because, being a beast, he suffers only the pain of the
moment, he does not know that he is going to suffer to-morrow,
nor worry about it. He is no longer one of those who "look
before and after and pine for what is not." He is a "good
doggie," and when you pet him on the head he rubs against you
and whines affectionately.
Poor, mad Jimmie Higgins will never again trouble his coun-
try; but Jimmie's friends and partisans, who know the story of
his experiences, cannot be thus lightly dismissed by society. In
the industrial troubles which are threatening the great democ-
racy of the West, there will appear men and women animated
by a fierce and blazing bitterness; and the great democracy of
the West will marvel at their state of mind, unable to conceive
what can have caused it. These rebellious ones will be heard
quoting to the great democracy the words of its greatest demo-
crat, spoken in solemn warning during the slaughter and de-
struction of the civil war:
"If God will that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as it was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said. The judgments
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
W. B. C.
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